ABSTRACT
This research is intended to help improve understanding of health research governance in the UK by exploring the regulatory practices and cultures in other countries and sectors. It is a comparative study of the practice of those who are subject to regulatory requirements in the health research, medical drugs, environmental and financial sectors. The research is informed by a review of a small subset of literature which is particularly relevant to this question, and focuses on different elements of regulation and regulatory governance for each of the different sectors.
ABSTRACT
In April 2013, the Department of Health (DH) announced an open competition to designate Academic Health Science Centres (AHSCs) in England. To support the current competition, the DH commissioned RAND Europe to compile and analyse various types of publicly available data and quality assessments in the domains of medical research and health education. This article presents the results of this analysis in the form of summary "tables of excellence," focusing on medical schools/academic partners likely to seek AHSC status. A detailed bibliometric analysis of health-related research publications has also been carried out and is presented. In addition, the article provides an overview of the publicly available data and outlines the significant caveats to using the data to produce education and research rankings for institutions. Given the various caveats and the requirements to balance two domains of activity (research and education), the ranking methodology presented in this article can be used in an "advisory" capacity to provide a general indication of the quality of the candidate AHSC institutions. The analysis is intended to assist potential applicants in deciding whether to submit a pre-qualifying questionnaire as part of the procurement process, and subsequently to inform the deliberations of the selection panel for the AHSCs.
