India, July 17 -- India's draft National Health Research Policy, which was released for public comment in July, has notable strengths.

First, the policy draft directly confronts administrative barriers, many of which lie within the department of health research's authority to address. Per the new policy, funding agencies would be required to publish turnaround times from application to project closure. Unspent funds could be carried across financial years. A single ethics review would be permitted for multi-site studies so that the same protocol need not be approved multiple times.

Even if the policy achieved only these reforms and nothing else, it would represent substantial progress over the current situation.

Second, the draft propo...