Healthy Skepticism Library item: 12761

Warning: This library includes all items relevant to health product marketing that we are aware of regardless of quality. Often we do not agree with all or part of the contents.

Publication type: Journal Article

Mladovsky P, Mossialos E, McKee M.
Improving access to research data in Europe
BMJ 2008 Feb 9; 336:(7639):287
http://www.bmj.com/cgi/content/extract/336/7639/287?etoc

Abstract:

The year 2007 marks the beginning of the European Commission’s seventh framework programme for research and technological development, its main vehicle for funding research over the next seven years. It is more ambitious than its antecedent-the sixth framework programme-with a large increase in funding (63%) and the creation of a European Research Council. Health research has been boosted, having been allocated 6bn (£4.3bn; $9bn) of the overall budget of 50.5bn. Yet the seventh framework programme has done little to promote access to the data whose collection it will finance.

This lack of concrete policies on access to data in Europe contrasts with the proliferation of wider international initiatives over recent years. Such initiatives have been particularly successful in genomics and proteomics,1 and more recently in the field of chemistry,2 but they have also shown promise in health. Examples in the United Kingdom include the policies of the Medical Research Council