Can we trust science if it is not published?

Unpublished clinical trials are, in Ben Goldacre's words, «a cancer at the core of evidence-based medicine».

A decade after Stiftelsen Dam first convened Norwegian health researchers around this challenge at the 2016 seminar Få forskningen fram (Get the Research Out), 28 per cent of clinical trials launched in Norway still fail to share their results.

Thousands of patients have taken part in research that never see the light of day.

Norwegian law requires trial results to be shared. Thirty-one Norwegian organisations and institutions signed the AllTrials petition in 2016, which was delivered to the Norwegian parliament. All stakeholders in the research society agrees the problem must be solved. But still, we tolerate legal breaches and unethical conduct related to publishing, while patients pay the price.

Ten years later, it is time to take stock and chart the way forward. This seminar shifts the focus from the problem to the solutions: what is already working, what funders, institutions, and researchers can do differently, and what it will take to close the gap between intention and practice.

The seminar gathers an international audience of around 200 health researchers, research institutions, funders, and patient organisations involved in projects supported by Foundation Dam.

It is held in connection with the annual meeting of EViR (Ensuring Value in Research), an international network of major research funders from Canada, the United Kingdom and several other European countries, working together to make health research more valuable to society. Previous EViR meetings have been hosted in London, Washington, Dublin and Stockholm. This year, Foundation Dam is the host in Oslo.

The conversation builds on the 2024 report Medical research waste in Nordic countries, co-published by Foundation Dam, which set out the scale of the problem across the region.

Why aren't good intentions enough — and what will it take to get there?

Register here to join us as we take stock and move from diagnosis to delivery.