Further research is needed

Source: Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia.
blobbogram is designed to show whether further research is needed. Studies crossing the vertical line are inconclusive. Here the summary (bottom diamond) shows that the treatment
prevented babies from dying. Further studies like these are not needed.

The phrases "further research is needed" (FRIN), "more research is needed" and other variants are commonly used in research papers. The cliché is so common that it has attracted research, regulation and cultural commentary.

Meaning

Some

research journals have banned the phrase "more research is needed" on the grounds that it is redundant;[1]
it is almost always true and fits almost any article, and so can be taken as understood.

A 2004 metareview by the

Cochrane collaboration of their own systematic medical reviews found that 93% of the reviews studied made indiscriminate FRIN-like statements, reducing their ability to guide future research. The presence of FRIN had no correlation with the strength of the evidence against the medical intervention. Authors who thought a treatment was useless were just as likely to recommend researching it further.[2]

Indeed, authors may recommend "further research" when, given the existing evidence, further research would be extremely unlikely to be approved by an ethics committee.[3]

Studies finding that a treatment has

Trish Greenhalgh, Professor of Primary Care Health Sciences at the University of Oxford, argues that FRIN is often used as a way in which a "[l]ack of hard evidence to support the original hypothesis gets reframed as evidence that investment efforts need to be redoubled", and a way to avoid upsetting hopes and vested interests. She has also described FRIN as "an indicator that serious scholarly thinking on the topic has ceased", saying that "it is almost never the only logical conclusion that can be drawn from a set of negative, ambiguous, incomplete or contradictory data."[6]

Addressing the phrase

Greenhalgh suggests that, because vague FRIN statements are an argument that "tomorrow's research investments should be pitched into precisely the same patch of long grass as yesterday's", funding should be refused to those making them. She and others argue that more thought and research is needed into methods for determining where more research is needed.[6][7]

likely value of possible further research.[11]

Example

Both the needfulness and needlessness of further research may be overlooked. The

born prematurely. Long after there was enough evidence to show that this treatment saved babies' lives, the evidence was not widely known, the treatment was not widely used, and further research was done into the same question. After the review made the evidence better known, the treatment was used more, preventing thousands of pre-term babies from dying of infant respiratory distress syndrome.[12]

However, when the treatment was rolled out in lower- and middle-income countries, early data suggested that more pre-term babies died. It was thought that this could be because of a higher risk of infection, which is more likely to kill a baby in places with poor medical care and more malnourished mothers.[12] The 2017 version of the review therefore said that there was "little need" for further research into the usefulness of the treatment in higher-income countries, but further research was needed on optimal dosage and on how to best treat lower-income and higher-risk mothers.[13]

Further research was done, and found the treatment did actually benefit babies in lower-income countries, too. The December 2020 version of the review stated that the "evidence [that the treatment saves babies] is robust, regardless of resource setting (high, middle or low)" and that further research should focus on "specific understudied subgroups such as multiple pregnancies and other high-risk obstetric groups, and the risks and benefits in the very early or very late preterm periods".[14]

In culture

The idea that research papers always end with some variation of FRIN was described as an "old joke" in a 1999 epidemiology editorial.[8]

FRIN has been advocated as a position politicians should take on under-evidenced claims.[15] Requests for further research on questions relevant to political policy can lead to better-informed decisions, but FRIN statements have also been used in bad faith: for instance, to delay political decisions, or as a justification for ignoring existing research knowledge (as was done by nicotine companies). Policymakers may also not know of existing research; they seldom systematically search databases of research literature, preferring to use Google and ask colleagues for research papers.[16]

FRIN has been advocated as a motto for life, applicable everywhere except research papers;[4] it has been printed on T-shirts,[17] and satirized by the "Collectively Unconscious" blog, which reported that an article in the journal Science had concluded that "no further research is needed, at all, anywhere, ever".[18]

The webcomic xkcd has also used the phrase as a topic, for self-satire, and as a bathetic punchline.[19]

References

  1. ^
    S2CID 72215015
    .
  2. ^ a b Vlassov, Vasiliy Victorovich (2004). "Further research is needed?". Cochrane Colloquium Abstracts.
  3. PMID 21833983
    .
  4. ^ a b Burnett, Dean (16 March 2016). "'More research is needed': empty cliché or words to live by?". The Guardian. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  5. ^ Martin Burton (October 7, 2016). "An invisible unicorn has been grazing in my office for a month... Prove me wrong". Evidently Cochrane.
  6. ^
    Greenhalgh, Trish (25 June 2012). "Less research is needed". Speaking of Medicine and Health. PLOS
    . Retrieved 8 October 2017.
  7. PMID 21565657
    . Retrieved 2017-10-24.
  8. ^
    PMID 9915604
    .
  9. PMID 22325694
    .
  10. ^ Redd, Steven B. (2011). "Scope and Methods of Political Science, Political Science 700" (PDF). University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee. (course notes)
  11. PMID 11511601
    .
  12. ^ a b Iain Chalmers (October 4, 2016). "Should the Cochrane logo be accompanied by a health warning?".
  13. PMID 28321847
    .
  14. PMID 33368142
    .
  15. ^ "Election claim pitfalls: "further research is needed"". Full Fact. 4 May 2015.
  16. ^ Tellmann, Silje M. ""Further Research is Needed!" - OSIRIS - Oslo Institute for Research on the Impact of Science". www.sv.uio.no. OSIRIS - Oslo Institute for Research on the Impact of Science. Retrieved 30 October 2021.
  17. ^ Irvine, Anaise (29 March 2017). "More Research is Needed". Thesislink. Retrieved 2 October 2017.
  18. ^ Dr. Psyphago (16 January 2013). "Scientists conclude: 'No further research is needed'". Collectively Unconscious. Retrieved 1 October 2017.
  19. ^ "2268: Further Research is Needed - explain xkcd". www.explainxkcd.com., "2271: Grandpa Jason and Grandpa Chad - explain xkcd". www.explainxkcd.com. "2344: 26-Second Pulse - explain xkcd". www.explainxkcd.com.
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