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| Common Research Model | |
|---|---|
| Name | Common Research Model |
| Type | Methodological framework |
| Developed | 21st century |
| Disciplines | Interdisciplinary |
| Main users | Researchers, institutions, consortia |
Common Research Model.
The Common Research Model is a standardized framework for coordinating research activities across multiple institutions and consortia to enable reproducible studies, data sharing, and collaborative analysis. It provides protocols for study design, metadata, data governance, ethical review, and computational workflows to align practices among partners such as National Institutes of Health, European Commission, Wellcome Trust, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, and major universities. The model draws on standards and practices from initiatives including FAIR data principles, ClinicalTrials.gov, Open Science Framework, Human Genome Project, and multinational infrastructures like CERN, ELIXIR, and Global Alliance for Genomics and Health.
The Common Research Model defines interoperable elements—study registration, standardized metadata, consent templates, data use agreements, analytic pipelines, provenance tracking, and reporting formats—so that entities such as Harvard University, University of Oxford, Stanford University, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, University of Cambridge, Princeton University, Yale University, Columbia University, California Institute of Technology, and University of California, Berkeley can collaborate. Its scope spans domains represented by organizations like World Health Organization, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, European Medicines Agency, and research infrastructures such as National Center for Biotechnology Information and European Bioinformatics Institute. The model is informed by policy frameworks from United Nations, Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development, Horizon 2020, National Science Foundation, and professional bodies like American Medical Association.
Origins trace to cross-institutional projects including Human Genome Project, International HapMap Project, ENIGMA Consortium, Large Hadron Collider, and coordinated efforts like Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria that revealed needs for harmonized procedures. Early standards emerged alongside initiatives from National Institutes of Health, European Research Council, Wellcome Trust, Open Data Institute, and MacArthur Foundation. Influential reports and efforts by Royal Society, Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, and European Commission shaped governance and ethics components. Later consolidation incorporated lessons from crises and programs: responses to Ebola virus epidemic in West Africa, COVID-19 pandemic, and collaborations among Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, PATH (global health organization), and Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.
Core components include standardized study protocols, metadata schemas, consent language, and data-sharing agreements used by partners such as Johns Hopkins University, Karolinska Institutet, Max Planck Society, Chinese Academy of Sciences, University of Tokyo, Monash University, University of Toronto, and McGill University. Technical elements draw on standards from Digital Object Identifier, Dublin Core, Health Level Seven International, and practices from PRISMA, CONSORT, and STROBE reporting guidelines. Governance models reference frameworks from Declaration of Helsinki, Belmont Report, General Data Protection Regulation, and institutional review mechanisms exemplified by Institutional Review Board processes at Oxford University Hospitals NHS Foundation Trust and Mayo Clinic. Computational reproducibility leverages tools and platforms such as GitHub, Docker, Apache Hadoop, Apache Spark, and Jupyter Notebook.
The model supports multicenter clinical trials coordinated by National Cancer Institute, multinational cohort studies like Framingham Heart Study extensions, and genomic consortia akin to 1000 Genomes Project. Public health surveillance collaborations among World Health Organization, European Centre for Disease Prevention and Control, and national agencies utilize it for outbreak analytics exemplified by collaborations during Zika virus epidemic and H1N1 influenza pandemic. Environmental and Earth science programs at NASA, European Space Agency, and National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration apply shared metadata and workflows. Social science and economics consortia including projects at Brookings Institution, The World Bank, International Monetary Fund, and United Nations Development Programme use harmonized protocols for comparative research.
Advantages include improved reproducibility seen in initiatives led by Open Science Framework, enhanced data discovery enabled by Dataverse, and streamlined ethics review processes adopted by networks like NIH Accelerating Medicines Partnership. The model reduces duplication across organizations such as Pfizer, GlaxoSmithKline, Novartis, and Johnson & Johnson in multi-site trials. Limitations involve regulatory divergence among jurisdictions represented by United States, European Union, China, and Brazil, variable resource capacities at institutions like University of Cape Town versus Imperial College London, and governance tensions highlighted in debates involving Facebook, Google, and Cambridge Analytica. Technical barriers include legacy systems at repositories like Dryad and interoperability challenges with proprietary platforms from Oracle and Microsoft.
Implementation guidance references platforms and tools used by GenBank, European Nucleotide Archive, Zenodo, Figshare, and Synapse (software). Workflow orchestration uses Nextflow, Snakemake, Galaxy (computational biology) and containerization via Singularity (software). Identity, access, and consent systems follow models from ORCID, eduGAIN, and federated authentication pilots at European Grid Infrastructure. Data governance and policy templates draw on examples from Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute, Sanger Institute, and regulatory bodies like Medicines and Healthcare products Regulatory Agency.
Notable deployments include harmonized cancer registries coordinated by International Agency for Research on Cancer, pandemic data platforms developed by Johns Hopkins Center for Systems Science and Engineering during COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, and large-scale genomic collaborations akin to UK Biobank and All of Us Research Program. Environmental monitoring examples involve interoperable data from Landsat program and Copernicus Programme used in cross-agency research with United States Geological Survey and European Environment Agency. Social and behavioral research employing common protocols is exemplified by international surveys conducted by Pew Research Center and comparative work by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development.
Category:Research methodology