Sammanfattning
Region Skåne (Health Care Region in south Sweden) and Lund university were among the first to institute a new system for use of ALF grant. ALF is an agreement between the Department of Education and Health Care Regions with a university (at the time of the report, six regions). The grants purpose are to support education of doctors and medical research in University Health Care and the grants are to compensate the extra costs in health care delivery caused by medical teaching and research. The agreement is regularly evaluated and negotiated.
After granting money for teaching, the Medical faculty and Region Skåne introduced a system for distributing these grants after application and scientific evaluation by a board of 12 external and internal clinical scientists. In parallel a scientist evaluated the selection process.
We here present an analysis of the process during the first 10 respectively 14 years. The quality has improved (52% acceptance rate to 66%). The number of female clinical scientist that was approved increased slowly during the years but is unfortunately still low compared to male scientists. Female members of the review committee gave in general lower scores for female applicants than for male. Male members did not make a distinction between male and female applicants, which scored equally.
In order to stimulate young clinicians to engage in research a system for young investigator’s grants (within 5 years of PhD) was started. 50% of working hours could be spent in research during three years with a possibility for extension for another three years. Ten years follow-up of the first grant given have shown that the recipients had made a significant progress both in clinical and academic career in 80% (i.e. reached a higher post).
We believe that our way of using ALF grant benefits and supports quality. The grants for young clinical researchers seem to have benefitted both clinical and academic career for the recipients and will be expanded.