Healthcare institutions may often prohibit “cold-calling” or direct contact with a potential research participant when the person initiating contact is unknown to the patient. This policy aims to maintain patient privacy, but may have unintended consequences as a result of physician gatekeeping. In this review, we discuss recruitment policies at the top academic institutions. We propose an ethical framework for evaluating cold-call policies based on three principles of research ethics. In order to maximize engagement of potential research participants, while maintaining patient privacy and autonomy, we then propose several alternative solutions to restrictive cold-call policies, including opt-in or opt-out platforms, a team-based approach, electronic solutions, and best practices for recruitment. As healthcare has evolved with more collaborative, patient-centered, data-driven care, the engagement of potential research participants should similarly evolve.

Since 1997 ageing research in the United Kingdom (UK) has been promoted through a series of research council special programmes with an emphasis on multi-disciplinary, collaborative, user-focused research. There has been notable progress and substantial setbacks, especially a major lull in activity, and strong disciplinary biases in later programmes. Skills, expertise and influence on policy and practice, developed through early programmes, have been lost. Two philosophies of programme management have emerged: a top-down approach to the development of priorities and activities, largely reflecting a linear model of research, development and diffusion; and, a bottom-up approach strongly influenced by the priorities of users including older people, which has emphasised the role of problem-solving and social interaction between researchers and users. A comparison of these two philosophies highlights factors which contribute to successful programme implementation and valuable outcomes for society at large. These emphasise: involvement of all potential users; encouragement of champions; supporting researchers at all stages in their careers; transparency in communicating intent, progress and achievements; varied and robust knowledge transfer; and, above all else, understanding the challenges faced by individuals as they grow older. Future programmes would be assured of making significant contributions to supporting older people and an ageing society if those commissioning the programmes recognised the importance of these factors and accepted the consequent challenges for the organisation of the programmes.

The maximum lifespan of different animal species is genetically determined. Many biochemical and physiological systems which influence longevity have apparently evolved to regulate growth and development in a way which maximizes fitness given the ecological niche and constraints on the species. The diversity of individual genetic effects on aging makes it unlikely that either extrinsic factors such as nutrition and medicine or genetic intervention will have dramatic effects on the maximum lifespan of a species, in spite of significant qualitative effects on individuals. However, understanding the fundamental genetic determinants of senescence may be of particular importance to the treatment and or prevention of age associated problems involving tissue degeneration and/or cancer. Considerable investment in basic biological research on both aging and developmental processes is needed before this understanding can be achieved.

This paper presents an endogenous growth model in which the research activity is financed by intermediaries that are able to reduce the incidence of researcher's moral hazard. It is shown that financial activity is growth promoting because it increases research productivity. It is also found that a subsidy to the financial sector may have larger growth effects than a direct subsidy to research. Moreover, because of the presence of moral hazard, increasing the subsidy rate to R&D may reduce the growth rate. I show that there exists a negative relation between the financing of innovation and the process of capital accumulation. Concerning welfare, the presence of two externalities of opposite sign stemming from financial activity may cause the no-tax equilibrium to provide an inefficient level of financial services. Thus, policies oriented to balance the effects of the two externalities will be welfare improving.

The policies influencing the American agricultural research agenda are developed by Congress, the U.S. Department of Agriculture, and the 58 state agricultural experiment stations of the land-grant university system, with input from various advisory groups. Despite the slow pace of change in the agricultural research agenda, there are no special barriers keeping the research system from adapting to contemporary and alternative agriculture issues. Rather, agricultural researchers have neither appropriate professional incentives nor sufficient financial incentives to shift toward alternative agriculture. Public intervention to alter these incentives has been thwarted because agricultural research institutions set their agendas through obscure processes. Five areas of policy change that could improve the prospects for evolution of a significant alternative agriculture research agenda are: 1) imposing a means test for formula fund payment limitations to states, with saved funds directed toward alternative agriculture research; 2) making priority setting a condition for receiving federalfunds for agricultural research to make the research agenda-setting process clearer to all interested parties; 3) requiring that federally funded research programs be categorized by the specific social goals toward which they are directed, to aid in judgments about the relevance of specific public agricultural research programs; 4) requiring information on research programs to be reported in a way that is specifically relevant to the alternative agriculture agenda; 5) formally involving public citizens and farmers in reviewing agricultural research grants to assure that the usefulness of proposed research is weighed along with scientific merit. These proposals complement current interest in making science generally more responsive to national priorities, and are entirely feasible within current agricultural research policy processes. Their effectiveness, however, is limited by the shrinking influence of federal funding in the state agricultural experiment station system, and they are only incremental changes within the existing system rather than radical reforms toward an alternative research system.

Farmers and the agricultural research and extension community at the land grant universities have experienced an evolving relationship. The current call for reform in publicly sponsored agricultural research and extension is built upon more than a century of dialog. If specialization and discipline-oriented research is to continue, the ecosystem-based knowledge of the farmer will become increasingly valuable. Involving farmers more actively in research and education could be achieved in several ways. Outside the land grant system, nonprofit agricultural research and demonstration organizations are being developed. Within the public system we need a renewed emphasis on extension at the local level and a revitalized applied research effort aimed at solving problems of the agricultural ecosystem rather than single disciplines. A dynamic and resourceful agriculture could result from including the farmer as a full partner in land grant research and education.