Heather Piwowar lists several funders, including the UK Medical Research Council (MRC), that “still explicitly ask for a list of research papers rather than products” in their grant-application process (Nature 493, 159; 2013). However, we at the MRC strongly agree that other outputs can provide valuable evidence of research significance and impact.

These research 'products' include development of new interventions, production and distribution of widely used data sets, changes to clinical practice or other advances that influence policy decisions, and commercial indicators such as licence income and growth of spin-out companies.

The MRC considers all such products in assessing researcher track records. Our grant-application forms specifically ask researchers how they intend to manage and share the results of their work, and to outline their productivity beyond published papers.

In addition, the company Researchfish has developed a structured online system for MRC-funded scientists to record their publications and research-product output. The system also provides publicly accessible information relating to MRC grants. It has now been adopted by 15 other UK funding agencies.