Study Sees Patchy Funder Uptake of Clinical Trial Transparency Best Practices in Europe

For a paper appearing in JAMA Network Open, a team from Germany, the UK, Sweden, and the Netherlands looks at the European adoption of World Health Organization clinical trial transparency best practices aimed at dialing down publication biases and waste associated with duplicated research efforts. With the help of an 11-item assessment tool, the investigators performed multiple evaluations on 21 large clinical trial funding organizations in Europe in 2021, considering best practices criteria that took everything from trial registries to monitoring, sanctions, and related academic publications into account. While funders often mandated prospective clinical trial registration mandates, for example, they found that fewer funders followed through on monitoring such registration or making trial results available to the public. "The primary outcome was funder adoption or non-adoption of 11 policy and monitoring measures to reduce research waste and publication bias as set out by WHO best practices," the authors explain, noting that "some best practices were more widely adopted than others."