Sustaining medical research – the role of trust and control

Abstract Background Medical research is increasingly interdisciplinary. However, not all projects are successful and cooperation is not always sustained beyond the end of funding. This study empirically assesses the effect of control and trust on the sustainability of interdisciplinary medical research in terms of its performance and satisfaction. Methods The sample consists of 100 German publicly funded medical research collaborations with scientists from medicine, natural and social sciences (N = 364). We develop a system model to analyze the influence of trust and control on performance and satisfaction of the cooperation. Findings Both control and trust are important prerequisites for sustainability, control mainly for the performance of the collaboration, and trust primarily for its satisfaction. While the level of interdisciplinarity is a positive moderator for performance, expectation of continuity is a negative intervening variable for the effect of trust and control on satisfaction. Moreover, trust principally adds to the positive impact of control on sustainability. Conclusions Interdisciplinary medical research requires a participative but systematic management of the respective consortium.