A University of Liverpool led research partnership has won a prestigious international award for making trials of new healthcare treatments more efficient and effective.
Professor Paula Williamson and her colleagues won one of the 2021 Cochrane-REWARD prizes for reducing research waste through the work conducted by the Medical Research Council (MRC)/National Institute for Health Research (NIHR) Trials Methodology Research Partnership (TMRP),
Background
TMRP brings together a number of networks, institutions and partners working in trials and trials methodology research. This research ensures health research, practice and policy are built on the best evidence; and maximises benefits for patients and the public.
Randomised trials are the cornerstone of evidence-based healthcare because they offer the best tests of treatments and health care interventions.
Research waste
Waste occurs during five stages of research production: question selection, study design, research conduct, publication, and reporting. Much of this waste appears to be avoidable or remediable, but there are few proposed solutions.
The evidence base for how to make the trials process more efficient is something the TMRP has contributed significantly to.
TMRP members work together as a community of practice, strengthening links between trialists, methods researchers, clinicians, patients, the public, and funders. TMRP includes eight Working Groups: Adaptive Designs; Global Health; Health Economics; Health Informatics; Outcomes; Statistical Analysis; Stratified Medicine; Trial Conduct.
The impact of better networking has led to:
- better, more impactful research
- ability to pivot to COVID-19 projects
- less duplication of effort
- value for money
- increased education and knowledge exchange
More effective COVID trials
An example of TMRP's impact can be seen in the improvement of COVID-19 related trials. New trial designs have led to more efficient and expedient trials. By using the same control group for several evaluations, fewer patients need to be randomised. The ability to add and remove treatments means that ineffective or highly beneficial treatments are identified quicker and trial infrastructure only has to be set up once.
Professor Paula Williamson, said: "We're delighted to have our work recognised with this award. TMRP has demonstrated how working together as a community of practice can achieve impact, making trials more efficient for the benefit of patients and other decision-makers."
The team picked up the award at the Cochrane Connects meeting on 1st March 2022.
