Imbalances in Health Research Funding in Germany
Author Information
Author(s): Beatrix Groneberg-Kloft, Carolin Kreiter, Tobias Welte, Axel Fischer, David Quarcoo, Cristian Scutaru
Primary Institution: Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Hypothesis
The study aimed to assess different benchmarking approaches to analyze disproportions in health research funding and output in Germany.
Conclusion
The study revealed significant imbalances in funding and research output between cardiovascular and respiratory medicine in Germany, indicating a need for policy changes.
Supporting Evidence
- There are 36 cardiology chairs compared to only 8 for respiratory medicine in Germany.
- Cardiology chairs published 2708 articles, while respiratory medicine chairs published only 453 articles from 2002 to 2006.
- The average citation per cardiology publication was 17.85, compared to 16.09 for respiratory medicine.
Takeaway
This study shows that there are many more resources and research papers for heart diseases than for lung diseases in Germany, which isn't fair since both are important.
Methodology
The study used output and input benchmarking to analyze published items and citations from 2002 to 2006, focusing on cardiology and respiratory medicine in Germany.
Potential Biases
Potential bias due to linguistic differences and the exclusion of non-English publications.
Limitations
The study was limited to the number of full professorships/chairs and did not assess funding from federal institutions or industry.
Participant Demographics
The study focused on full professorships/chairs in cardiology and respiratory medicine across 16 German states.
Digital Object Identifier (DOI)
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