The published article, entitled “Success factors of crowdfunding campaigns in medical research: perceptions and reality” investigates the determinants of successful crowdfunding campaigns in medical research.

"Drug Discovery Today" is a peer reviewed journal published by Elsevier, ranked as 9th out of 157 journals in drug discovery, according to the Scimago Journal & Country Rank. “I feel really excited about having our research findings published in a high standard peer-reviewed journal that I would typically choose to cite in SSE Riga projects and reports,” admits one of the authors Anna Aleksina.

Crowdfunding in medical research is becoming more popular owing to increasing competition for the shrinking amount of government funding. Considering the positive effect of medical research and innovation on individuals and society as a whole, more-widespread crowdfunding by medical researchers might significantly improve welfare and benefit the economy in the long term. The authors conclude that crowdfunding campaigns can achieve their fundraising goal regardless of the disease characteristics; scientists could request funding for any kind of project, including therapies for rare diseases and diseases with lower mortality rates.

The majority of research was carried out while Anna Aleksina and Stanislau Akulenka was working on their SSE Riga Bachelor Thesis under the supervision of Associate Professor Ágnes Lublóy.

Read the full article at https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drudis.2019.05.012