• Christian William Callaghan.
• School of Economic and Business Sciences, Knowledge and Information Economics/Human Resources Research Agency (KIEHRA), University of the Witwatersrand, 1 Jan Smuts Avenue, Braamfontein, Johannesburg, South Africa chris.callaghan@wits.ac.za.
• Br. Med. Bull. 2015 Sep 1; 115 (1): 67-76.

Introduction Or BackgroundCrowdsourced R&D, a research methodology increasingly applied to medical research, has properties well suited to large-scale medical data collection and analysis, as well as enabling rapid research responses to crises such as disease outbreaks.Sources Of DataMultidisciplinary literature offers diverse perspectives of crowdsourced R&D as a useful large-scale medical data collection and research problem-solving methodology.Areas Of AgreementCrowdsourced R&D has demonstrated 'proof of concept' in a host of different biomedical research applications.Areas Of ControversyA wide range of quality and ethical issues relate to crowdsourced R&D.Growing PointsThe rapid growth in applications of crowdsourced R&D in medical research is predicted by an increasing body of multidisciplinary theory.Areas For Timely ResearchFurther research in areas such as artificial intelligence may allow better coordination and management of the high volumes of medical data and problem-solving inputs generated by the crowdsourced R&D process.© The Author 2015. Published by Oxford University Press. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oup.com.

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