The Medical Research Council’s (MRC) policy on open research data: clinical trials and public health interventions requires MRC-funded researchers to:
- register trials in the ISRCTN registry within 12 months of award start
- publicly report results within 24 months of trial end.
Research data should be made available for sharing and reuse with as few restrictions as possible.
Temporary suspension of funding for non-compliance
From February 2020, to improve trial registration in the MRC’s specified registries, funding for any trials not registered in the ISRCTN registry or in a regional WHO primary registry may be temporarily suspended until registration is completed.
ClinicalTrials.gov is not a WHO primary registry and therefore not accepted as meeting MRC registration requirements.
What did we do?
Since 2017, MRC has carried out annual reviews of all trials funded by MRC to assess compliance with our policy. The results from our 2024 review are presented below.
What did we find out?
Trials funded
Between 1 February 2011 and 31 January 2023 MRC funded 141 clinical trials.
Trials registered
Of 141 trials that started during 2017 to 2023:
- 100% were publicly registered in a clinical trials registry
- 73% were registered in the ISRCTN registry or a WHO primary registry (as required by MRC policy)
- 94% of trials that started in the last year of the review were registered before recruitment began
Since February 2020, when MRC introduced temporary suspension of funding for trials that are not registered in the ISRCTN registry or a WHO primary registry, 98% of trials have been compliant with the MRC registration policy.
Trials reporting results
58 trials in the current audit period had been completed for 24 months or more by 31 December 2024:
- 45% had publicly reported trial findings within 12 months of completion
- 26% had publicly reported trial findings 12 to 24 months of completion
- 21% had publicly reported trial findings more than 24 months after completion
- 9% had finished for at least 24 months but had not reported results
Trial data shared
MRC encourages researchers to share trial data so it can contribute to new research and add value.
Of the 49 trials that had published their main results, 28 (53%) had made provisions to share their data with other researchers, including providing contact details for data access requests and information about what data sets could be shared.
Summary
Although registration of MRC trials is consistently 100%, only 73% were registered in the MRC’s required registries in this audit period. Since February 2020, when temporary suspension of funding for non-compliance with registration requirements was introduced, 98% of trials have been fully compliant with MRC’s registration policy. This compares with 56% compliance for trials awarded funding between February 2017 and January 2020.
The percentage of new trials registered before the trial begins is over 90% but the goal should be 100%.
Compared with previous audits, the percentage of completed trials that have publicly reported the main findings within 12 months of the trial end has increased and was 45% in the most recent audit period However the percentage reporting by 24 months remains largely unchanged at 71%.
Sharing of data with researchers outside the trial team is increasing year-on-year and is now at 53%.
Further information
2024 review:
- a summary report Clinical Trials Review 2024
- 2024 review data
2020 review:
- a summary report Clinical Trials Review 2020
- 2020 review data.
2019 review:
- a summary report Clinical Trials Review 2019
- 2019 review data.
2018 review:
- a review was published in BMJ Open
- 2018 review data.
2017 review:
- a summary report Clinical Trials Review 2017
- 2017 review data.
Contact for more information
If you have any queries about the review, email: anne.chapman@mrc.ukri.org