IMPACT AND UTILISATION OF BIOMEDICAL RESEARCH FINDINGS IN THE HEALTHCARE POLICIES OF MALAYSIA: 2005-2015

Abstract

Introduction: There has been growing interest among research funders and stakeholders in measuring outcomes and returns from funded research with increasing amount of funds spent on R&D. Hence, research impact assessment studies have emerged and are crucial in providing the accountability for the funding spent for each project, justification for future spending or allocation of funds, and prioritisation for future expenditure. Objective: This study aimed to look into the impact of biomedical research findings from the aspects of knowledge production, research targeting and capacity building, as well as health system policy and decision making. Only biomedical projects related to breast cancer, coronary heart disease and dengue funded by the Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Higher Education (MOHE), and Ministry of Science, Technology, and Innovation (MOSTI) between year 2005 and 2015 were included in this study. Methodology: This study employed a convergent parallel mixed methods research design incorporating both quantitative and qualitative research approaches. Quantitative data were gathered from the ministries’ database, survey questionnaires, and bibliometric analysis. A total of 58 out of 153 principal investigators of the funded biomedical projects responded to the questionnaires (response rate 37.9%). Bibliometric analysis was conducted with Scopus database. Qualitative data were gathered by conducting semi-structured in-depth interviews with 30 Key Opinion Leaders (KOLs) consisting of biomedical researchers, policymakers, and public health program managers. Results for this study were generated from the triangulations of the quantitative and qualitative data. Results: The Malaysian government has not spent enough on R&D activities as manifested by a 1.04% GERD/GDP on R&D in 2018. Nevertheless, research grants have been well spent as it has been allocated according to research priority areas set by the ministries. Impact on knowledge production was well achieved as there had been a lot of new knowledge generated as captured in academic publications, conference proceedings, policy briefs, technical reports, and research highlights. From the questionnaire responses (N=58), on average each funded project managed to produce two outputs and had been presented in at least one scientific meeting. Impact on research targeting and capacity building were also well attained with the production of postgraduate candidates and training of researchers as well as identification of knowledge gap and generation of new research ideas. On average, each funded project from the questionnaire responses managed to produce one higher degree student. More than half (61.4%) of the questionnaire responses agreed that their funded projects would lead to subsequent future research. However, success rate of commercialisation was rather low with only four commercialisation products and nine patents produced from the 58 funded projects. Nevertheless, the impact on health system policy and decision making had not been well attained. From the 58 questionnaire responses, only 6 projects (10.3%) were reportedly cited in systematic reviews, 4 projects (6.9%) were cited in health policies, and 3 projects (5.2%) were cited in CPGs. Similarly, only 2.5% of the references in the Malaysian CPGs related to the three diseases within 2005-2015 were citing Malaysian papers and none of the references in WHO’s CPGs related to the three diseases within the same years was citing Malaysian papers. Discussions: Most of the local research findings were not adopted into policies by the policymakers due to the fundamental nature of research as a higher percentage of funding was spent on basic research and applied research compared to experimental research. Two-way communications between the policymakers and researchers were also lacking, where the policymakers were not communicating their research needs and the researchers were not sharing their research findings with the policymakers. Conclusion: Impacts on knowledge production as well as research targeting and capacity building had been reasonably well achieved. However, impact on health system policy and decision making had not been well attained. The missing nexus between the researchers and policymakers needs to be seriously looked into so that effective bridges can be built to bridge the gap and maximise impact of research on health policy making.