A student recently asked the principal of his university if the university would join AllTrials. The university’s administration discussed it, the principal agreed with it and today the University of Edinburgh joined AllTrials.
University of Edinburgh joins Cardiff University, Dartmouth College, Hull York Medical School, Kings College London, Bond University and London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine and is the first Scottish university to sign up. These institutions represent around 100,000 students and 20,000 researchers.
We don’t know who this one student is but we’re glad he was able to make such a difference. (We do know he’s a he because the university referred to “him” in an email.) There are many ways to help the AllTrials campaign. Sometimes it takes hundreds of people writing letters, other times one person can make a huge difference.
Ask your school, alma mater or local university to join the campaign.
Update 16th June 2014: We’ve heard from the student.
My name is Adam Lloyd and I am the student who wrote to the Sir Timothy O’Shea [Principal of University of Edinburgh] with regards to AllTrials. I am a big advocate of AllTrials and so I felt compelled to engage with my university about the issue of trial publication.
I graduated as a nurse last year and have been doing a Masters in Clinical Research at University of Edinburgh this year… I read Bad Science and Bad Pharma as an undergrad and now, as a qualified clinician, I felt Edinburgh could endorse the AllTrials initiative.
Anyway nice to meet you and if I can help in any other way then me know. As I say I hope to pursue this line of academia throughout my career.