Success determinants of full-time researchers at hospitals. A perceptions-based study.

Abstract

Different factors affecting performance and productivity of researchers have been described in the literature. Namely individual factors, contextual and organizational factors and psychological factors. Most studies have been carried in an academic environment, mainly in laboratories. But these factors may affect researchers activity in a different way within the essentially clinical hospital environment. In this work we investigate the extent to which different individual and institutional characteristics can influence performance and productivity of researchers within the hospital setting. The Miguel Servet (MS) Research Contract Programme is one of the most important strategic actions being undertaken by Spanish Administration in order to enhance the research activity at public hospitals. The Programme is aimed at incorporating researchers with excellent training within the National Health System (NHS) in order to improve its research capacity and to promote the creation of stable research groups within the NHS. The universe to be studied consisted of the 367 researchers funded by first eigth calls (1998-2005) of the MS Programme, whose contracts ended between 2005 and 2012. We used a web-based survey to obtain data from the population of MS researchers (72.2% response rate). Data on research activity and productivity were obtained from the activity reports submitted by researchers. The present work is based on data from the 174 researchers who finished its six-year contract and who answered the survey. Results Productivity and the capacity to obtain research projects are related with researchers’ satisfaction with the human resources in their groups. Thus, art_N increases by 57% in satisfied versus unsatisfied researchers. The capacity to publish in top journals is also influenced by this satisfaction: art_Q1 increased by 65%. Likewise, satisfied researchers participated in 44% more projects than those unsatisfied, but did not obtain a significant higher number of projects as principal researcher. As expected, leadership of a research group increases proj_PR and %proj_PR (+ 61% and +29% respectively). Productivity in ISI journals is also related with the kind of research performed. Researchers doing clinical research published more articles (65% more than those doing basic research and 21% more than basic+clinical researchers), more art_Q1(+ 70% than basic) and obtained a higher proj_N and proj_PR (+69% and +98% respectively).