85% of health research is wasted: how to do great research, get it published, and improve health outcomes

Trish Groves reflects on the scandal of waste, error, and misconduct in clinical and public health research and describes a new effort to tackle research and publication integrity from both ends. This challenge matters everywhere, but it’s specially urgent in low and middle income countries. The University of California, San Francisco and BMJ have teamed up to develop an eLearning programme for clinical and public health researchers called Research to Publication

Core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals: consensus statement

Background  Scientific editors are responsible for deciding which articles to publish in their journals. However, we have not found documentation of their required knowledge, skills, and characteristics, or the existence of any formal core competencies for this role.  Methods  We describe the development of a minimum set of core competencies for scientific editors of biomedical journals.  Results  The 14 key core competencies are divided into three major areas, and each competency has a list of associated elements or descriptions of more specific knowledge, skills, and characteristics that contribute to its fulfillment.  Conclusions  We believe that these core competencies are a baseline of the knowledge, skills, and characteristics needed to perform competently the duties of a scientific editor at a biomedical journal.Additional co-authors: Kurinchi Gurusamy, Farrokh Habibzadeh, Stefanie Jewell-Thomas, Diane Kelsall, José Florencio LapeñaJr, Harriet MacLehose, Ana Marusic, Joanne E. McKenzie, Jay Shah, Larissa Shamseer, Sharon Straus, Peter Tugwell, Elizabeth Wager, Margaret Winker and Getu Zhaor

Compartir los datos de investigación en ciencia: introducción al data sharing

The emergence in the scientific community of an initiative known as data sharing, consisting of sharing research data among researchers and aiming to maximize efforts and resources, is analysed. First, the concept of research data and the related technical difficulties depending on the discipline are reviewed. We also examine the motivations, origins and growth of this movement, which has had an important impact on the scientific community’s behaviour through the creation of reposi- tories and data banks, raising both technical and social challenges. Then we discuss leading funding agencies’ initiatives and scientific journals’ editorial policies promoting these practices. Finally, we examine the impact these major changes in researchers’ habits have for librarians, including the emergence of new professional profiles

Preferred reporting items for systematic review and meta-analysis protocols (PRISMA-P) 2015 statement

Systematic reviews should build on a protocol that describes the rationale, hypothesis, and planned methods of the review; few reviews report whether a protocol exists. Detailed, well-described protocols can facilitate the understanding and appraisal of the review methods, as well as the detection of modifications to methods and selective reporting in completed reviews. We describe the development of a reporting guideline, the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses for Protocols 2015 (PRISMA-P 2015). PRISMA-P consists of a 17-item checklist intended to facilitate the preparation and reporting of a robust protocol for the systematic review. Funders and those commissioning reviews might consider mandating the use of the checklist to facilitate the submission of relevant protocol information in funding applications. Similarly, peer reviewers and editors can use the guidance to gauge the completeness and transparency of a systematic review protocol submitted for publication in a journal or other medium

Pandemic obesity in Europe

A new charter from WHO promises concerted action to prevent and treat obesit