You have a research hypothesis and a clinical trial design, but “so what?” What does your clinical trial mean for patient outcomes and healthcare? It is important to articulate the value of the trial to your patient community and the health district (e.g. new treatment option, safer surgical procedures) through an impact statement.

The Australian Research Council defines research impact as the contribution that research makes to the economy, society, environment or culture, beyond the contribution to academic research.

As funding bodies increasingly seek to understand the return on their investment in your clinical trial it is important that you consider how to prospectively measure the impact of your clinical trial as it is often not feasible or affordable to collect this data retrospectively.

• A research impact statement can also help you and funding bodies identify if your idea is valid and worth investing time and resources into.
• Consider what needs to be included in the design of your trial so that you can assess its affordability, value and potential impact.

Who can help?

• HMRI Health Research Economists Group foster the integration of economic principles and techniques into health research, build regional capacity and expertise in health research economics and to conduct original research of relevance to the field of health economics.
  • Their ‘FAIT’ model is a novel framework specifically developed to encourage research translation and measure and report on research impact in a multi-dimensional way