As a funder, the Medical Research Council (MRC) works alongside the biomedical research community to enable good, ethical and responsible research conduct.
We have recently completed an audit of compliance with our clinical trials policy. We will now reach out to a sample of our funded researchers to review understanding and adherence to our data sharing and embedding diversity in research design policies.
Policy and ethics
Claire Newland, MRC Director for Policy, Ethics and Governance, said:
This policy review is all about helping our community do better research, understanding what works well and identifying areas for improvement.
The aim at this stage is not to police compliance, but rather a guide to enhance ethical research practices and the support provided by our Centre for Research Policy.
The review is part of our ambition to improve medical research. It aligns with our work to embed considerations for positive research culture within our new MRC Centres of Research Excellence funding model and ensuring good practice in patient involvement and public partnerships.
MRC Centre for Research Policy
We’ve recently redirected the skills and experience from the MRC Regulatory Support Centre to launch the Centre for Research Policy.
The centre is collaborating with the research community and the public to develop and implement research policies that enable responsible research and innovation. Part of this work is reviewing compliance.
Working with you
The clinical trials audit focused on registration and dissemination of results, ensuring researchers are registering their projects in the right databases so the widest range of people can find out about these trials.
We also assessed whether researchers are disseminating their results correctly and making trial data available for sharing.
Compliance with our policy is closely monitored and funding may be suspended until registration is completed.
We’re pleased to see from the audit report that 98% of our funded trials were registered in a WHO primary registry in the most recent audit period, 2020 to 2023.
Data sharing policy
We are committed to ensuring value for money and maximising the societal benefits of research by making data accessible beyond the original research team. The new centre is therefore looking at compliance with the MRC data sharing policy.
In June this year, some grant holders will be selected for a pilot audit. If contacted, please help us shape this process to make it as meaningful as possible.
Sarah Dickson, Head of the new MRC Centre for Research Policy said:
We are eager to explore how our policies are being interpreted and learn how we can better support our research community. So, if you are contacted by my team to take part, please do share your views.
Embedding diversity in research design
All research should be for everyone, by everyone, and be relevant to as many people as possible. This principle also extends to MRC-funded research using animals, which must include males and females unless there is a compelling reason for not doing so.
A survey to find out about researchers’ experiences of MRC’s embedding diversity policy will run until 13 June. This is part of a broad review of the policy, which includes its impact on grant applications and will examine compliance.
Rachel Knowles, MRC Lead for Clinical Research Policy, Ethics and Governance, said:
We want to find out if researchers are designing their research to be more inclusive and identify areas for improvement.
The results of the review will be shared in summer 2025 and will inform the development of additional resources and support for inclusive research practice.
Making research relevant to everyone
Sarah Dickson, Head of the new MRC Centre for Research Policy, added:
We know researchers want to do the right thing but may not always know how.
Our goal is to ensure the research we fund is relevant to everyone, with the broadest possible impact, genuinely improving lives of people from all backgrounds.
Here to help
We offer a range of policy resources to assist researchers in understanding their responsibilities and are always open to providing additional guidance and support.