Application processing time: recent examples

The graph below provides examples of processing times for 25 recently approved projects. It is intended as a guide only to assist researchers in project planning.
Factors that can influence timelines for the various stages in the process are as follows:
Stage 1: Proposal to applied (green)
- New Researchers/familiarity with data requested
- Incomplete applications
- Researcher responsiveness, commitment to process
- Consistency among grant, ethics and DAR applications
- Lack of full detail up front
Stage 2: Applied to approved stage (blue)
- Project complexity (number of Data Stewards involved)
- Competing institutional commitments or priorities
- Legislative or policy changes
Stage 3: Approved to actionable (grey)
- Responsiveness of all parties in signing agreements
- External data providers’ capacity/responsiveness in drafting/signing Information Sharing Agreements
- Multiple organizations playing a role in defining the cohort
- Capacity of external data providers to produce cohorts or data extracts
- Linkage complexity or availability of identifiers
- Availability of most recent data files
Stage 4: Actionable to first data received (black)
- Complexity of study population
- Linkage complexity or availability of identifiers
- Availability of most recent data files
- Number of datafiles requested