Best practices for enhancing surgical research: a perspective from the Canadian Association of Chairs of Surgical Research

The Canadian Association of Chairs of Surgical Research was created in 2014, with representation from every departmental surgical research committee across Canada, to establish Canadian surgical research as a beacon for health care innovation and to propose solutions for the daily challenges facing surgeon-researchers. Our key mandate has been to identify challenges for surgeons and scientists performing research to prevent further erosion of this vital area of activity that benefits patients, health care service providers and Canadian society. This article outlines the findings of a nationwide survey sent to all members of departments of surgery across Canada, seeking input on current threats and potential solutions. The results suggest that surgical research in Canada is experiencing a decline in funding and an increase in challenges affecting research productivity of academic surgeons, such as pressures to be clinically active, unpredictable surgical schedules, growing administrative demands, and increasing complexity of patient populations. Although surgeons are productive in their research endeavours, institutional changes and sharing of best practices are needed to ensure sustainable growth of research programs.