Research Paper of the Year

 

We are currently seeking nominations for this award - please see below

 

Background Information

 

The Research Paper of the Year Award is now in its fifteenth year.  Its purpose is to:

  • Raise the profile of research in general practice and primary care.
  • Demonstrate that high quality research is being undertaken in general practice and primary care.
  • Give recognition to a group of researchers or an individual researcher, who have/has undertaken and    
        published an exceptional piece of research relating to general practice or primary care.
  • Recognise the increasing importance of a multi-disciplinary approach to primary care.

 

This year, the award will also include additional specific categories aligned to the six NIHR topic specific research networks of diabetes; mental health; stroke; dementias and neurodegenerative diseases; cancer; medicines for children as well as primary care.

 

Each sub-category winner(s) will receive a prize. An additional award will be awarded to the overall winning paper, selected from the sub-category winners. The authors of the overall winning paper will also be invited to present at the annual RCGP and Society for Academic Primary Care conference.

 

The sub-category winners will be announced in early Summer 2012 with the Research Paper of the Year overall winner announced at the awards ceremony, supported by Novartis, in June 2012.

The Research Paper of the Year Award is supported by an unconditional grant from Novartis Pharmaceuticals UK Ltd

 

How to Nominate/Apply:

Please send an electronic copy of the paper or a link to it to circ@rcgp.org.uk or post to:

 

Clinical Innovation and Research Centre

Royal College of General Practitioners

1 Bow Churchyard

London EC4M 9DQ

 

A paper can be nominated by its author(s) or a person with no connection to the paper. Please call us on 0203 188 7597 if you have any queries.

 

The deadline for nominations for the 2011 Research Paper of the Year Award is now closed.

 

Conditions of Entry

 

Criteria for the Award

The Award Panel is especially keen to receive nominations from people who have a read a paper whose content has particularly impressed them, for example, because of the applicability of its findings to service general practice or because the paper relates to a major issue affecting general practice and/or primary care.

 

The panel of judges for this award apply the following criteria when they are reviewing entries for this award:

Originality

Originality is a major criterion. The panel looks at whether papers are the extension of a previously existing idea or of previous work or for example, a duplication of study that has already been done but in a different setting. It will consider whether a paper constitutes a study of a subject which has not been previously researched or a subject that has not be satisfactorily studied in the past.

 

Applicability

Papers submitted for this award are expected to contribute clearly to the body of medical science and to have applicability to working general practitioners in the United Kingdom and/or the Republic of Ireland. Merit will be given to those studies that have direct relevance to and can be easily implemented within a service practice setting. The panel considers whether the paper in some way illuminates general practitioners' understanding of disease, service delivery or the kind of patients that consult GPs. The panel will also assess whether the content of a paper will be of obvious help or assistance to service GPs.

 

Standing of General Practice/Primary Care

The panel considers how the paper contributes to the standing of general practice and primary care within the academic community of medicine as a whole.

 

Presentation

The panel considers the presentation, clarity and style of papers as well as their scientific soundness and value.

 

Authors

Additional credit will be given, as part of the assessment to papers that are multi-disciplinary in their authorship.

 

GP contribution

The lead researcher for studies relating to general practice and primary care is not always a GP. Credit will be given where a general practitioner is the principal investigator. For entries to be eligible, at least one of the paper's authors should have been a general practitioner normally undertaking some clinical sessions within the United Kingdom or the Republic of Ireland at the time the study was undertaken. If this was not the case, entries for this award may be accepted at the discretion of the Chair of the panel of assessors, dependent on the reason for the break in the relevant author's service or other pertinent background information.

 

Topic

Papers should preferably relate to clinical work with patients in the general practice or primary care setting and the project must have been undertaken within the UK and/or the Republic of Ireland. There is no specific topic on which papers are being sought. Papers relating to philosophical aspects of general practice and primary care and meta analyses are eligible but, in the case of two papers attracting equal scores, additional weight is likely to be allocated to a paper based on primary research.

Papers could, for example, cover one or more of the following aspects:

Research in which the prevention of complications is clearly demonstrated

2010 RCGP and Novartis Research Paper of the Year award - List of Nominated Papers - please click on the link on the left

 

2010 Winning Paper

The 2010 RCGP Research Paper of the Year award was given to the paper: Survival and cessation in injecting drug users: prospective observational study of outcomes and effect of opiate substitution treatment" by

Jo Kimber, Lorraine Copeland, Matthew Hickman, John Macleod, James McKenzie, Daniela De Angelis, James Roy Robertson

 

Over thirty years, ago a practice serving an economically deprived population was faced with the challenge of rapid HIV spread amongst its drug injecting patients. In addition to providing the best clinical care they could, the Muirhouse Medical Group created the Edinburgh addiction cohort which recruited 794 people from 1980-2007.

Over the years this internationally important study has reported on many aspects of the problems faced by patients, their care providers and the community. for continuing to provide valuable new insights 31 years after the study began. In the continuing debate about how clinicians and policymakers should respond to injecting drug use this study provides clear evidence to inform that debate.

They formed links with local NHS services, excellent research teams in Bristol, Cambridge, London and the Information and Statistics Division Scotland. The importance of their work has been recognised by a range of funding bodies over the years particularly the Scottish Chief Scientist Office and the National Institute for Health Research. Remarkably for such a difficult to study population, they were able to study the records of 655 (82%) of the patients in the cohort including 187 of those who died. The team also interviewed 432 patients to obtain the rich data presented in the paper.

 

Read the 2010 Winning Paper here

 

circ@rcgp.org.uk

 

020 3188 7597