Draft citation policy
Consultation on the policy governing how the Institute cites evidence. The draft requires that every citation resolve to a retrievable source, that an identifier the Institute does not hold be recorded as not held rather than reconstructed, and that a claim…
§1Consultation and window
§1.1Window
- Opened
- 24 July 2024
- Closed
- 18 September 2024
- Duration
- 56 days
- Status
- Closed — the disposition is published
- Document under consultation
- Governance document
- Submissions received
- 9
§1.2Consultation questions
The secretariat put the following questions. A submission was not required to address them and several did not; the questions record what the Institute was uncertain about rather than restricting what a respondent could raise.
- Is the prohibition on reconstructing an identifier workable, given that a reader may expect an identifier where the Institute has none?
- Should a citation to a regulatory assessment document be treated as equivalent to a citation to a peer-reviewed report, or recorded as a distinct class of source?
- Is the requirement that every superscript resolve to a numbered entry on the same page a useful constraint or a formatting preference?
§1.3How a submission is handled
- Every submission is signed. The Institute publishes no anonymous submission.
- Every submission carries a declared interest. A declaration of no interest is itself a declaration and is recorded as one. A declaration is not a disqualification and the Institute has never given a submission less weight on that ground.
- A submission from an employee of a marketing-authorisation holder is identified as an industry submission on its face, following a unanimous consultation on the conflicts policy.
- Every submission receives a secretariat response and a disposition. Submissions that are not accepted remain published in full; the Institute does not remove a submission because it disagrees with it.
- There is no voting, no reputation score, no reply thread and no editing after receipt.
§1.4Outcome
The policy was ratified with amendments. Regulatory assessment documents are now recorded as a distinct source class with their own annotation, and the prohibition on reconstructing an identifier was retained without qualification.
The disposition table, listing each submission with its disposition and the resulting amendment, is at §3.