TY - JOUR
T1 - Cancer research in India
T2 - National priorities, global results
AU - Sullivan, Richard
AU - Badwe, Rajendra A.
AU - Rath, Goura K.
AU - Pramesh, C. S.
AU - Shanta, V.
AU - Digumarti, Raghunadharao
AU - D'Cruz, Anil
AU - Sharma, Suresh C.
AU - Viswanath, Lokesh
AU - Shet, Arun
AU - Vijayakumar, Manavalan
AU - Lewison, Grant
AU - Chandy, Mammen
AU - Kulkarni, Priyadarshini
AU - Bardia, M. R.
AU - Kumar, Shaleen
AU - Sarin, Rajiv
AU - Sebastian, Paul
AU - Dhillon, Preet K.
AU - Rajaraman, Preetha
AU - Trimble, Edward L.
AU - Aggarwal, Ajay
AU - Vijaykumar, D. K.
AU - Purushotham, Arnie D.
N1 - Funding Information:
The most striking difference between the situation in India and most western European countries is that in India, the government has a dominant role and charities and commercial companies have a very minor one. At present, more than 44% of cancer research in India receives funding from one or more government sources. It is clear from policy discussions with the National Cancer Grid (Pramesh CS, National Cancer Grid, unpublished) that although multinational companies are active in India, much of the research that they fund is not published or the Indian investigators are not properly acknowledged in the authorship list. Our more in-depth analysis reveals that direct funding for cancer research in India preferentially supports basic research (mostly genomics), clinical research in medical oncology, and to a lesser extent, epidemiology. Outputs for important areas such as surgery and radiotherapy have very few direct funding acknowledgments, suggesting that they are dependent on so-called soft short-term funding. More than 50% of Indian publications do not cite any external funding support. Most of these studies are probably indirectly funded (salaries for researchers, infrastructure, and consumables) by the core grant to the institutions from the parent funding body (eg, Department of Atomic Energy, ICMR, Department of Science and Technology, and University Grants Commission). Although core funding is an important basis to sustain research, an absence of oversight through peer review is, in the long term, insufficient to keep quality high.
Funding Information:
An initiative supported by the Wellcome Trust could change the funding situation for biomedical research in India, although perhaps not as much for cancer research as for other areas. The organisation have set up a fellowship programme with Department of Biotechnology in India supported by £80 million over 10 years. They also form one of the four partners of the Public Health Foundation of India, along with the World Bank, WHO, and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Four Indian Institutes of Public Health have been built (in Bhubaneswar, Delhi, Gandhinagar, and Hyderabad; more institutes are planned) to provide education, training, and research for public health. The Australia–India Research Fund has organised a similar initiative to support strategic alliances between Australian and Indian researchers in all sciences, including biomedicine. The Academy of Finland aims to promote high-quality scientific research and has key partners in India, with which it has well established research funding. It has agreements on funding cooperation with the Department of Biotechnology, and the Department of Science and Technology. To cover all areas of science, the Academy has also expressed interest in collaborating with the ICMR and the Indian Council of Social Science Research. Such country-based initiatives should be expanded to drive the funding for cancer research from international sources. However, such initiatives should not distract from the important problems associated with the uneven distribution of well funded government establishments for research in Delhi and Chandigarth, which are better resourced and staffed than are many state-funded institutions. We have not been able to separate out these two funding sources; however, there is a need for better government distribution of funding in addition to greater state support.
PY - 2014/5
Y1 - 2014/5
N2 - Over the past 20 years, cancer research in India has grown in size and impact. Clinicians, scientists, and government and state policy makers in India have championed cancer research, from studies to achieve low-tech, large-scale health outcomes to some of the most advanced areas of fundamental cancer science. In this paper, we frame public policy discussions about cancer with use of an in-depth analysis of research publications from India. Cancer research in India is a complex environment that needs to balance public policy across many competing agendas. We identify major needs across these environments such as those for increased research capacity and training and protected time for clinical researchers; for more support from states and enhanced collaborative funding programmes from government; for development of national infrastructures across a range of domains (ie, clinical trials, tissue banking, registries, etc); and for a streamlined and rational regulatory environment. We also discuss improvements that should be made to translate research into improvements in cancer outcomes and public health.
AB - Over the past 20 years, cancer research in India has grown in size and impact. Clinicians, scientists, and government and state policy makers in India have championed cancer research, from studies to achieve low-tech, large-scale health outcomes to some of the most advanced areas of fundamental cancer science. In this paper, we frame public policy discussions about cancer with use of an in-depth analysis of research publications from India. Cancer research in India is a complex environment that needs to balance public policy across many competing agendas. We identify major needs across these environments such as those for increased research capacity and training and protected time for clinical researchers; for more support from states and enhanced collaborative funding programmes from government; for development of national infrastructures across a range of domains (ie, clinical trials, tissue banking, registries, etc); and for a streamlined and rational regulatory environment. We also discuss improvements that should be made to translate research into improvements in cancer outcomes and public health.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84899983335&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84899983335&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1016/S1470-2045(14)70109-3
DO - 10.1016/S1470-2045(14)70109-3
M3 - Review article
C2 - 24731887
AN - SCOPUS:84899983335
SN - 1470-2045
VL - 15
SP - e213-e222
JO - The Lancet Oncology
JF - The Lancet Oncology
IS - 6
ER -