Start of new curriculum of the Lecture Series – Pitfalls and Solutions: ‘Good Experimental Design’:

Topic:              Increasing value of medical research through complete, transparent and unbiased reporting

Speaker:         Prof. Joerg J Meerpohl, Institute for Evidence in Medicine, Medical Center & Faculty of Medicine, University of Freiburg and Cochrane Germany, Cochrane Germany Foundation, Freiburg

Time:              Wednesday, 26 October 2022 at 5 pm

Venue:            Seminar room ground floor, Zentrum Translationale Zellforschung (ZTZ), Breisacher Str. 115

The current guidelines and Corona measures of the Medical Center – University of Freiburg will apply for this lecture. A 3G confirmation will be required (as of 28 April 2022).

Abstract:         In 2014, researchers argued in a series in the Lancet (1), that 85% of medical research suffers from important limitations that impact severely on its value. They identified 5 areas which are priorities to improve on to increase the value of biomedical research: (a) relevance of the research question; (b) use of appropriate research design, methods and analysis; (c) efficient research regulation and management; (d) full access to research information; (e) unbiased and usable research reports.

This seminar will focus on shortcomings in access to research information (area 4) and limitations in research reports (area 5). Current initiatives (e.g. www.equator-network.org) and recent methodological developments to increase value of research will be discussed. In particular, important reporting guidelines such as CONSORT for randomized controlled trials (2), STROBE for observational studies (3) and ARRIVE for animal studies (4) will be introduced.

Registration:   The lecture will take place as an on-site event. Participation is only possible with registration. Please register in advance for the lecture using the following link:

https://www.med.uni-freiburg.de/de/forschung/Forschungsdekanat/Veranstaltungen-des-Forschungsdekanats/lecture-series-experimental/lecture-2022-registration

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References:

1.         Macleod MR, Michie S, Roberts I, Dirnagl U, Chalmers I, Ioannidis JP, et al. Biomedical research: increasing value, reducing waste. Lancet. 2014;383(9912):101-4.

2.         Schulz KF, Altman DG, Moher D. CONSORT 2010 statement: updated guidelines for reporting parallel group randomised trials. PLoS Med. 2010;7(3):e1000251.

3.         von Elm E, Altman DG, Egger M, Pocock SJ, Gotzsche PC, Vandenbroucke JP. The Strengthening the Reporting of Observational Studies in Epidemiology (STROBE) statement: guidelines for reporting observational studies. Ann Intern Med. 2007;147(8):573-7.

4.         Percie du Sert N, Hurst V, Ahluwalia A, Alam S, Avey MT, Baker M, et al. The ARRIVE guidelines 2.0: Updated guidelines for reporting animal research. PLoS biology. 2020;18(7):e3000410.