Institutional Collaboration in Plastic Surgery Research: A Solution to Resource Limitations

Abstract

Background:The current climate of health care reform and research funding restrictions presents new challenges for academic plastic surgery. Collaboration with private enterprise has been associated with greater research productivity in the general biomedical literature. This study seeks to analyze publication trends in Plastic and Reconstructive Surgery (PRS) to evaluate any changes in institutional collaboration over time.Methods:Bibliographic data were retrospectively analyzed for all original research and discussion articles published in PRS from 2012 to 2016. The institutional affiliation for each publication was characterized from its author list as solely academic, private, government, or combinations of these (defined here as “institutional collaborations”). Annual National Institutes of Health (NIH) funding data were also collected over the same period, and associations were analyzed by linear regression.Results:In total, 2,595 publications were retrieved from PRS between 2012 and 2016, of which 2,027 (78.1%) originated solely from academic institutions and 411 (15.8%) from institutional collaborations. Although the proportion of academic-only publications decreased from 82% to 74%, the proportion of institutional collaborations increased from 10% to 20% (P = 0.038). Concurrently, NIH funding declined from $33.4 billion to a low of $30.7 billion, which was associated with the decreasing proportion of academic-only publications (P = 0.025) and increasing proportion of institutional collaborations (P = 0.0053).Conclusions:Traditional sources of academic research funding have been restricted during the politically and financially tumultuous recent years. With no signs of improving access to financial resources from the NIH, academic plastic surgeons may consider diversifying their institutional partnerships to continue pioneering advances in the field.

Impacto de la cirugía plástica mexicana en revistas internacionales: análisis a 5 años

“…Otro hallazgo que vale la pena mencionar es que el título con mayor número de citas fue el Report on mortality from gluteal fat grafting: recommendations from the ASERF task force, reflejando que las colaboraciones internacionales actualmente son una oportunidad excelente para la generación de artículos de alto impacto. 11 El presente trabajo cuenta con algunas limitaciones, como únicamente realizar la búsqueda en revistas de alto impacto e ignorar grandes bases de datos como MEDLINE o Scopus, o ignorar revistas latinoamericanas y artículos en español. Sin embargo, el enfocarse en revistas de alto impacto nos permite evaluar mejor el impacto internacional de nuestra especialidad.…”

Analysis of gender representation, authorship inflation, and institutional affiliation in abstract acceptance: a 5-year study

“…Three major medical journals, Journal of the American Medical Association, the New England Journal of Medicine, and the British Medical Journal, observed a threefold increase in the average number of authors from 1990 to 2010 [ 1 ]. There is debate as to whether this trend reflects increasingly complex research collaborations and higher quality research or “authorship inflation,” whereby honorary authorship is gifted to more senior authors to hasten promotion, facilitate publication, and/or fulfill an obligation [ 1 , 2 ].…”

Plastic Surgery Fellowship at Nippon Medical School Hospital: An Integrative Approach to Modern Plastic Surgery Education

“… 24 – 26 Such acquired benefits lay the foundations for facilitating networking between researchers, encouraging international institutional collaboration, and connecting investigators in multiple disciplines leading to increased communication, interdisciplinary citation, and research productivity which is recently considered essential in improving modern academic plastic surgery especially when local governmental funding constraints interfere with maximizing the research productivity. 27 …”