Table 1 Survey questions related to preferred practices to promote the objectivity of research and their rationale

Signed contracts reviewed by institution [18]

Reduce the risk of transparency bias

Signed contracts do not have restrictive confidentiality clauses that prevent disclosure of trial information without permission from the funder [17, 18, 29]

Reduce the risk of publication bias

Budgetary reviewed by a REB or institutional official [3]

Reduce the risk of transparency bias

Registration of a trial in a WHO approved registry since the requirement for trial registration in 2005 [10, 30, 31]

Reduce the risk of publication bias [32]

Investigators rather than funder should have data ownership [17, 18, 33]

Reduce the risk of reporting bias

Investigator should have access to data from all sites [11, 12]

Reduce the risk of reporting bias

Funder should not control final decisions regarding

   Study design [11, 12]

Reduce the risk of biased study designs

   Data analysis [11, 12]

Reduce the risk of biased analyses

   Data interpretation [11, 12]

Reduce the risk of biased interpretation

Funder should not control final decision on content of submitted manuscripts [11, 12]

Reduce the risk of reporting bias

There should be no ghost authorship [34]

Reduce the risk of reporting bias