KCE Trials is a programme of publicly funded, non-commercial, practice-oriented clinical trials. These studies address questions that are generally not studied by industry, despite their high social importance. For example, few studies compare two surgical techniques, or investigate the effect of already existing drugs in groups that are under-represented in commercial studies, such as children or the elderly.
The first step in starting a trial within the KCE Trials programme is identifying a research question that is important for the quality and efficiency of the Belgian health care system....
The commissioned workstream starts with a call for topic proposals. Healthcare professionals, policy makers, patients and citizens can respond to this type of call. Selected topic proposals are translated into a commissioning brief. The commissioning briefs are published in a second call, inviting research teams to express their interest to perform the commissioned clinical trial by submitting a research outline (RO). The investigator-led workstream starts with a call for research teams to submit a research outline for research topics proposed by the research team itself.