FINANCIAL-SUPPORT FOR RESEARCH IN RADIOLOGY - A SURVEY OF ORIGINAL INVESTIGATIONS PUBLISHED IN THE AJR AND RADIOLOGY

OBJECTIVE. This study was done to determine how often the original res earch published in AJR and Radiology is formally funded by external so urces or explicit intramural institutional research grants and to expl ore the association of financial support with the subspecialty field; type of research (clinical vs basic); number of coauthors; number of d epartments, nonradiology departments, and institutions participating p er paper; country of origin; and citation impact of investigations. MA TERIALS AND METHODS. All 736 original articles published in AJR and Ra diology in 1990 were surveyed. The following information was abstracte d: the presence or absence of specific funding, as determined from the footnote acknowledgments given by the authors (for the 560 papers fro m the United States, financial support was further classified accordin g to the funding agency listed first); the subspecialty field of resea rch, as determined from the indexing of the paper in the table of cont ents; the type of research (clinical, basic, combined clinical and bas ic); the number of coauthors; the number of departments, nonradiology departments, and institutions participating; the first author's depart ment (radiology, medicine, surgery, medical physics); the first author 's institution (university-affiliated medical institution, medical ins titution not affiliated with a university, National Institutes of Heal th center); and the country of the first author's institution. Researc h impact was assessed by using citation counts. RESULTS. Only 17% of t he surveyed studies were formally funded. The 95 funded studies from t he United States were federally sponsored (63%), funded by private ind ustry (11%), supported by nonprofit foundations (16%), or funded from explicit intramural institutional monies (11%). Funding was significan tly related to the subspecialty field (p = .00007), the type of resear ch (p < .000001), and the category of the first author's department (p < .000001). When papers on contrast media research were excluded from the analysis, the association of funding to the field of research bec ame statistically insignificant (p = .21). Financial support was not s ignificantly related to the category of the first author's institution (p = .71) or to whether the research was done in the United States (p = .71). A statistically significant positive association was found be tween funding and the number of coauthors (p = .013), the number of de partments (p = .049), nonradiology departments (p = .004), and institu tions participating per paper (p = .018). Funded papers were cited mor e extensively than nonfunded papers (p = .015). CONCLUSION. Only a sma ll percentage of radiology research attracts formal, especially extram ural, financial support. This should be a cause for concern. As the in formal funding of investigations from redirected clinical revenues is diminishing, action will be required to procure funds to support the r adiology research necessary for the vitality of the specialty.