Tracking the performance of an R&D programme in the Biomedical Sciences

TL;DR

This paper presents an evaluation framework for biomedical R&D programs, exemplified by Spain's CIBER initiative, analyzing its impact on research output, collaboration, and researcher perception over seven years.

Contribution

It introduces a comprehensive framework for assessing biomedical R&D programs, focusing on research output, collaboration, and researcher perception, with empirical analysis of the CIBER initiative.

Findings

CIBER contributed to about 25% of Spain's biomedical publications.

The program increased internal collaborations, but they remain relatively weak.

Mentions of CIBER in publications increased after two years, stabilizing over time.

Abstract

This paper aims at offering an evaluation framework of an Research and Development programme in the Biomedical Sciences. It showcases the Spanish Biomedical Research Networking Centres initiative (CIBER) as an example of the effect of research policy management on performance. For this it focuses on three specific aspects: its role on the national research output in the biomedical sciences, its effect on promoting translational research through internal collaboration between research groups, and the perception of researchers on the programme as defined by their inclusion of their CIBER centres in the address field. Research output derived from this programme represents around 25 per cent of the country's publications in the biomedical fields. After analysing a seven year period, the programme has enhanced collaborations between its members, but they do not seem to be sufficiently strong. With regard to the credit given to the initiative, 54.5 per cent of the publications mentioned this programme in their address, however an increase on the share of papers mention it is observed two years after it was launched. We suggest that by finding the point in which the share of mentions stabilises may be a good strategy to identify the complete fulfilment of these types of Research and Development policies.