Distribution of financial resources according to productivity in the Hospital de Clínicas Medical Research Laboratories, University of São Paulo School of Medicine (Brazil)

A challenge that research managers have to face is how to "reallocate" agency budgets in order to bring them in line with the results of performance reviews. Research policies must develop a strategic plan describing their goals, devise yardsticks to measure their progress, and tie that performance to allocate research funds with some degree of priority. Though Brazil already has a substantial presence in world’s science, scientific enterprise must be used to strengthen it. The first step should be to raise standards in Brazilian science by concentrating the resources on supporting excellence. A strategy to judge biomedical research productivity should include tactics to disclose whether the resulting publications have appeared in the field’s most respected, peer-reviewed journals. A pilot project to road-test the above-discussed ideas on performance measurements was conducted at the Laboratories of Medical Research (Clinical Hospital, University of Sao Paulo School of Medicine). These Laboratories perform a vast proportion of biomedical research at the country’s largest University. This article illustrates that confidence in fairness and consistency with which funds are now being allocated has helped to improve productivity, thus showing that this strategy is fruitful. (Rev Med Chile 2000; 128: 431-6).