Researcher’s Support Room is a dedicated space where research projects are encouraged and nurtured through discussions and guidance (for example, in a healthcare facility).

Research Support Room

The idea is to offer technical guidance and support to those interested in conducting research. This includes, but is not limited to:

  • healthcare professionals (for example; doctors, nurses, lab technicians) wanting to conduct research in their facilities for the first time
  • early career researchers looking for mentorship
  • experienced scientists seeking for peer-qualified external opinion to improve their investigation

Within this space, discussion regarding research methods and project development take place. The aim is to encourage good quality studies by using the appropriate methods, following ethical standards, and achieving results that are relevant.

Background

In March 2020, when the COVID-19 pandemic was declared, the University Hospital of Brasilia – University of Brasilia assembled a dedicated committee to give institutional support to any relevant COVID-19 research initiatives. Professionals who had long desired to get involved in research, and researchers who had been less active in the field in recent years, were encouraged to join this institutional effort.

"Interacting with researchers, we noticed weakness in the research proposals, open flaws in their methodology, and limited experience with clinical research methods -that could be corrected with little guidance, but also eagerness in joining the global efforts to fight the pandemic and openness to discuss their proposals and receive technical and methodological advice."

 

 

"We realized then that there was an unmet need underlying this scenario that extended beyond the scope of the pandemic represented, for example, by the enthusiasm of professionals in our Institution who had long been desiring to get involved with clinical research, but dealt with methodological and other practical difficulties that kept them apart from achieving the goal."

The University Hospital of Brasilia acknowledged the unmet need as an opportunity and created the Researcher’s Support Room in October 2020, an enduring service to offer support for healthcare professionals – and anyone who wants to conduct health research – in the design and development of any health research project. research support room