Dissemination of Results

It is expected that results from of research conducted at an academic institution will be made available to the scientific community and otherwise generally benefit society. Sponsors may also have certain dissemination requirements, such as registering and posting clinical trial results to NIH ClinicalTrials.gov.

Most often, activities such as submitting manuscripts for publication in scientific journals (and ultimately providing open access), presenting research results at scientific conferences, posting research data to a publicly-available web site, providing data to scientists upon request, and participating in media interviews fulfill expectations and requirements for dissemination of results. Data and publications may also be deposited to open access repositories. UW Libraries Scholarly Publishing and Open Access page provides general information on a range of open access topics, plus a link on the proposed UW faculty open access policy now under discussion in the Faculty Senate.

 Roles

• The Principal Investigator (PI) is responsible for validation of results to be disseminated and for determining when and how they will be disseminated. Collaborators should be consulted with respect to all of these activities, as appropriate.
• Research staff may assist with the preparation of reports, manuscripts, archived data, and web site postings, as appropriate, under the direction of the PI.

 Plan/Act

• Prepare a detailed report of the research, including the results, for submission to a scientific journal.
• Present research results at one or more scientific conferences.
• Post detailed methodology, including statistical approach, and raw data to a publicly-available web site or make this information available upon requests.
• Consider responding to media requests for interviews or lay summaries of the research.

Clinical trials: Post results at ClinicalTrials.gov

Studies that are registered at ClinicalTrials.gov must post the results to this website. The deadline for reporting is usually no later than one year after the final subject was examined or received an intervention for final collection of data for the primary outcome. This requirement must be fulfilled even if the trial never enrolled any subjects or was terminated prematurely for any reason. Review this clinical trials registration and reporting guidance for information about exceptions, alternate timelines, and penalties for non-compliance.