BMJ  2006;332:1215 (20 May), doi:10.1136/bmj.332.7551.1215-a

Letter

How should we rate research?

Pedigree: paternity and progeny

EDITOR—What is meant by quality in health research?^{1 2} For social scientists, the Economic and Social Research Council detailed multiple problems with American metrics.³ It introduced the concept of esteem: something dynamic and cumulative (not just sitting on public committees). Pondering what is admirable, I propose two assessments, both stemming from encountering the health scientist I most "esteemed": Peter Medawar.⁴ These same qualities were detectable in other Nobel laureates I met.³ There is a pedigree of ideas (seeking the origin in originality) and of influence (shaping the shapers).

What seminal ideas gave paternity to a widely growing family tree of research (such as Medawar's immunology)? This is not the same as the most cited papers, which may in reality be derivative and technical. It needs a mapping exercise (sometimes called data mining in disciplines such as patents) to identify seminal work. In many health disciplines these family trees are not hard to map (consider diagnostic magnetic resonance: that forest is roughly 30 years old with perhaps three original seeds).

All the laureates I pondered nurtured teams or networks, from which new research leaders emerged. Mathematicians, in relation to the Fields Medal (equivalent of the Nobel prize), predict that working with one paradigm shifter shapes other trail blazers. In the fledgling Institute of Psychiatry, Aubrey Lewis had extraordinary influence, promoting academic careers and charting challenges for mental health research.⁵ This influence lasted at least 60 years (at the Maudsley Hospital in the 1990s one could still trace Lewis's progeny) and spanned the British Commonwealth.

Lewis's fecundity can be measured by the amazing quantity and variety of research still produced by one small institute, but even more so by measuring the international collaborations that have nurtured research leaders far beyond the United Kingdom. Now that is a legacy of quality.

Anglia Ruskin University, Chelmsford CM1 1SQ a.w.caan{at}anglia.ac.uk

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Competing interests: WC once, briefly, held an honorary lectureship at the Institute of Psychiatry and was once a member of the Foresight Forum of the Academy for the Social Sciences.

References

1. Hobbs FDR, Stewart PM. How should we rate research? BMJ 2006;332: 983-4. (29 April.)[Free Full Text]
2. Caan W. Inequalities and research need to be balanced. BMJ 2002;324: 51-2.[Free Full Text]
3. Caan W. Pedigree, paternity and progeny. http://bmj.bmjjournals.com/cgi/eletters/332/7548/983#133075 (3 May 2006).
4. Peter Medawar (selected quotations and book links) www.creativequotations.com/one/417.htm (accessed 5 May 2006).
5. Angel K, Jones E, Neve M, eds. European psychiatry on the eve of war: Aubrey Lewis, the Maudsley Hospital and the Rockefeller Foundation in the 1930s. London: Wellcome Trust Centre for the History of Medicine at University College London, 2003. (Medical History 2003;suppl 22.)

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