Categorisation of citations to trace the translation and impact of biomedical research

评估生物医学研究在改善健康方面的更广泛影响的重要性越来越受到研究资助机构的认可。这些研究被用来向纳税人说明所花的钱。它们也被用于，例如，医学研究慈善机构，如关节炎研究运动，试图了解如何组织研究，以提高效益，从而进一步改善健康。但是，在进行这种研究时存在相当多的实际问题。传统的方法，涉及研究人员考虑他们的同事的工作，发挥了重要作用，在评价研究质量。但它们在评估影响方面发挥的作用往往较为有限，例如研究最终如何转化为改进的临床实践。使用更新的方法取得了相当大的进展，这些方法包括与研究人员和其他人进行访谈，以评估特定生物医学研究的更广泛影响。然而，这些研究需要大量资源，而且在实验室进行的基本生物医学研究往往比在医院或社区进行的临床研究更难进行。最近的一份报告建议进一步努力制定评价方法。有时使用的一种方法是计算其他研究人员提到或引用某位研究人员的次数。的文章在他们自己的研究中。这就是所谓的引文分析。这种简单的引文计数提供足够的研究质量的措施是有争议的，但人们普遍认为，这样的计数不提供更广泛的影响从research.We建议，然而，研究如何使用一种新的方法来引用分析跟踪生物医学研究的影响，并在照明的过程中涉及的研究转化为最终的临床实践的影响。为此，我们提出了一个两阶段的方法。首先，我们建议开发一种方法，通过这种方法，我们将能够对引文进行分类，并识别出那些表明以前的研究对随后的研究很重要的引文。第二，我们建议试点使用这种方法来追踪原始研究对一系列后续研究的影响。通过追踪这一系列论文的影响，我们希望我们可以展示原始研究最终如何有助于改善临床护理和健康状况。

The importance of assessing the wider impact of biomedical research in terms of improved health is increasingly being recognised by research funding bodies. Such studies are used to account to tax payers for the money spent. They are also used, for example by medical research charities such as the Arthritis Research Campaign, in an attempt to understand how to organise research so as to enhance the benefits and thus lead to further improvements in health. But there are considerable practical problems in conducting such studies. Traditional approaches, involving researchers considering the work of their colleagues, play an important role in the evaluation of research quality. But they often play a more limited part in assessment of impacts such as how research is eventually translated into improved clinical practice. Considerable progress is made using newer approaches that involve conducting interviews with researchers and others to assess wider impacts of particular pieces of biomedical research. These studies are, however, resource-intensive to conduct and tend to be even more difficult to undertake in relation to basic biomedical research conducted in laboratories than on clinical research conducted in hospitals or the community. A recent report recommended further work to develop evaluation methods. One approach sometimes used is to count the number of times other researchers refer to, or cite, a researcher?s article in their own research. This is known as citation analysis. How far such simple citation counts provide adequate measures of research quality is contested, but it is widely agreed that such counts do not provide adequate assessments of wider impacts from research.We propose, however, to examine how a new approach to citation analysis could be used in tracing the impact of biomedical research and in illuminating the processes involved in the translation of research into eventual impact on clinical practice. To do this we propose a two phase approach. First, we propose to develop a method by which we shall be able to categorise citations and identify those that show that previous research has been important to a subsequent piece of research. Second, we propose to pilot the use of that method to trace the impact made by an original piece of research on a series of later pieces of research. By tracing the impact through such a series of papers we hope we might show how the original research eventually contributed to improved clinical care and improvements in health.