National Health Research Registries (NHRR)
Prospective registration of health research in a publicly accessible web-based registry can substantially help to improve accountability, efficiency, quality, and transparency in health research. In addition, it can serve as a governance and management tool for health research governance agencies by facilitating real-time tracking health research portfolio, priority setting, allocation of resources for health research and linking of different stakeholders of health research.
The prospective registration of clinical trial or ‘intervention’ research in publicly accessible registries (Clinical Trial Registries-CTR) is already well accepted as a scientific, moral and ethical imperative. However, many registries established with defined mandate of registering clinical trials are already registering non-clinical trial research as well, though, as of now, it is voluntary on the part of researchers, in the majority of the countries.
Considering the importance of research such as population-based surveys, observational studies and health system and policy research, important gains can be made by prospective registration of these research as well. Hence, Member States are encouraged to establish national health research registries—similar in concept to CTRs—but with much broader scope of research to be registered beyond just clinical trials. It is proposed that at least all health research that requires prior ethical review as per local national requirements may be encouraged to be registered in national health research registry.