European diabetes research and its funding, 2002–2013

Abstract

Aim This study examined the outputs of research papers in diabetes from 31 European countries between 2002 and 2013, and their funding.Methods Diabetes research papers in the Web of Science were identified by means of a filter based on journals and title words. For 2009-2013 papers, the funders were coded to show their sector and nationality.Results Europe published 40 547 diabetes papers in the 12 years between 2002 and 2013. Denmark, Sweden and Finland published the most relative to their wealth, but the UK published the most absolutely despite an apparently low burden (as measured by disability-adjusted life years). The largest source of funding was government (30%), followed by the non-profit sector (18%) and industry (13%). The European Commission supported 2.7% of papers, but more in Latvia (33%) and Estonia (16%). Based on an estimated cost per paper of €260 000, the annual research expenditure in Europe was approximately €986 million in 2013.Conclusions The European diabetes burden in disability-adjusted life years increased by one third between 2002 and 2012, but its output of research papers has decreased from 44% to 36% of the world total. This decrease needs to be reviewed in the context of European non-communicable disease research policy. Diabet. Med. 34, 1354-1360 Introduction Diabetes represents a major global health problem and, together with other non-communicable diseases, has led to a major policy document on its prevention and control from the World Health Organization (WHO) [1]. Worldwide, 1.5 million deaths were directly associated with diabetes in 2012, and 2.2 million more were related to high blood glucose [2]. In the European region in 2015, almost 60 million people had diabetes. Based on data from the WHO website on the disease burden for the 31 European countries (EUR31; the 28 European Union Member States, plus Iceland, Norway and Switzerland) between 2002 and 2012, the average percentage of disability-adjusted life years (DALYs) from diabetes increased from 2.0% to 2.6% [3]. In 2012, the figure ranged from 1.3% in the UK to 4.9% in Cyprus. Countries in the Mediterranean and Southern Europe (Portugal 4.3%, Spain 3.7%, and Italy 3.5%) had the highest levels, except for Greece (2.2%). Besides the UK, the lowest percentages occurred in Romania, Lithuania and Finland (1.8%) and Iceland (2.0%).This paper presents the results of a bibliometric study of outputs (i.e. scientific papers) and funding for diabetes research from 2002 to 2013. The study, of the EUR31 countries, was performed as part of the Mapping NonCommunicable Diseases (NCD) project, funded by the European Commission under the 7th Framework Programme. The aim was to map research activity and assist research funding organizations such as the Commission to identify gaps and overlaps in the current state of diabetes research, and point out areas on which to focus future strategies. Previous studies that have applied a bibliometric approach to the outputs of diabetes research have mainly focused on a specific type of diab...

The impacts of diabetes research from 31 European Countries in 2002 to 2013

“…They were also analysed by another VBA program to show the fractional presence of each country among their addresses. All these parameters could then be compared with the corpus of European diabetes research papers in 2002-13 (Begum et al 2017) to show whether the journalists had made an unbiased selection from them, and in particular whether they had over-or under-cited the research from their compatriots. Although the papers cited by CPGs went back many years before the start date of 2002 for our study, this was much less the case for newspaper stories as they tended to report new research results, and only seven of the 822 cited papers appeared before 2002.…”

“…European newspaper stories about diabetes research The file of newspaper stories about diabetes research contained 8,596 stories, of which 822 entries (9.6%) concerned diabetes. This shows a substantial interest by the press in the disease, as diabetes research accounted for only 5.9% of European biomedical research and only 4.3% of the disease burden measured in Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALYs), (Begum et al 2017). The stories appeared in 30 different European newspapers from 22 countries, led by Daily Mail (UK) with 126, Le Soir (Belgium) with 111 and The Guardian (UK) with 102.…”

“…However, we have also considered the citations to different subject areas within diabetes research because these can affect the apparent performance of individual countries, which may concentrate their research efforts on different areas. For example, Italy carried out relatively more research on the effects of diabetes on the liver than Germany, but the reverse was true for research on the effects on feet (Begum et al, 2017; Table 1). As we shall see, research on the effects on the liver is much better cited than research on the effects on feet (Table 4), and this is part of the reason why Italy's citation performance overall is superior to that of Germany (Table 3).…”

Funding research to change lives: exploring the impact of Diabetes UK research

“…To effect change for people with and at risk of diabetes, we must work within that landscape and help shape the future of diabetes care.Our 2015-2019 research strategy highlighted the challenge diabetes research faces in the current funding landscape, with just half a penny going to research for every £1 spent caring for diabetes in the UK [1]. Alongside this, the presence of the European research community in worldwide diabetes research outputs appears to be falling-from 44% in 2002 to 33% in 2015 [2]. Identified as the leading non-profit research funder within Europe during that period, we have a responsibility to ensure that world-class diabetes research focused on deepening knowledge and improving lives continues.Looking to the future and building on the success and learnings of the National Institute for Health Research (NIHR)'s Clinical Research Networks in the UK, we have established the new diabetes Clinical Studies Groups (CSGs).…”

A crisis in diabetes research funding

“…In this issue of Diabetic Medicine , we publish a paper that indicates that the crisis in diabetes research extends across much of Europe . Indeed, there the situation may be even worse than in the UK, which is currently the biggest contributor to European diabetes research, publishing 30% more papers than Germany, the second‐ranked country.…”