There is an immediate need for a change in research workflows so that pre-existing knowledge is better used in designing new research. A formal assessment of the accumulated knowledge prior to research approval would reduce the waste of already limited resources caused by asking low priority questions.
This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution
Relevant articles
Open Access articles citing this article.
-
Exploring trial publication and research waste in COVID-19 randomised trials of hydroxychloroquine, corticosteroids, and vitamin D: a meta-epidemiological cohort study
BMC Medical Research Methodology Open Access 23 January 2024
-
A meta systematic review of artificial intelligence in higher education: a call for increased ethics, collaboration, and rigour
International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education Open Access 19 January 2024
-
Summarizing the effects of different exercise types in chronic low back pain – a systematic review of systematic reviews
BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders Open Access 22 August 2022
Access options
Access Nature and 54 other Nature Portfolio journals
Get Nature+, our best-value online-access subscription
$29.99 / 30 days
cancel any time
Subscribe to this journal
Receive 12 digital issues and online access to articles
$119.00 per year
only $9.92 per issue
Rent or buy this article
Prices vary by article type
from$1.95
to$39.95
Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout
References
Glasziou, P. & Chalmers, I. BMJ 363, k4645 (2018).
Chalmers, I. & Glasziou, P. Lancet 374, 86–89 (2009).
Fraser, H., Parker, T., Nakagawa, S., Barnett, A. & Fidler, F. PLoS ONE 13, e0200303 (2018).
Nilsen, E. B., Bowler, D. & Linnell, J. D. C. J. Appl. Ecol. https://doi.org/10.1111/1365-2664.13571 (2020).
Gurevitch, J., Koricheva, J., Nakagawa, S. & Stewart, G. Nature 555, 175–182 (2018).
Gold, R. et al. Health Expect. 16, 338–350 (2013).
Saran, A. & White, H. Campbell Syst. Rev. 14, 1–38 (2018).
Stewart, G. B., Higgins, J. P., Schünemann, H. & Meader, N. PLoS ONE 10, e0114497 (2015).
Lau, J. et al. N. Engl. J. Med. 327, 248–254 (1992).
Koricheva, J. & Kulinskaya, E. Trends Ecol. Evol. 34, 895–902 (2019).
Leimu, R. & Koricheva, J. Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 271, 1961–1966 (2004).
Nichols, J. D., Kendall, W. L. & Boomer, G. S. Ecol. Evol. 9, 13991–14004 (2019).
Carrick, J. et al. J. Flood Risk Manag. 12, e12484 (2019).
Altmann, D. BMJ 308, 283 (1994).
Darras, K. et al. J. Appl. Ecol. 55, 2575–2586 (2018).
Acknowledgements
We thank H. Fraser and J. Eales for their insightful comments on our commentary which has greatly improved the final version.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Ethics declarations
Competing interests
The authors declare no competing interests.
Supplementary information
Supplementary Information
Supplementary Methods, Fig. 1 and references.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Grainger, M.J., Bolam, F.C., Stewart, G.B. et al. Evidence synthesis for tackling research waste. Nat Ecol Evol 4, 495–497 (2020). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1141-6
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-1141-6
This article is cited by
-
Exploring trial publication and research waste in COVID-19 randomised trials of hydroxychloroquine, corticosteroids, and vitamin D: a meta-epidemiological cohort study
BMC Medical Research Methodology (2024)
-
A meta systematic review of artificial intelligence in higher education: a call for increased ethics, collaboration, and rigour
International Journal of Educational Technology in Higher Education (2024)
-
Summarizing the effects of different exercise types in chronic low back pain – a systematic review of systematic reviews
BMC Musculoskeletal Disorders (2022)
-
Quantifying research waste in ecology
Nature Ecology & Evolution (2022)
-
European agroforestry has no unequivocal effect on biodiversity: a time-cumulative meta-analysis
BMC Ecology and Evolution (2021)