Making clinician-scientists visible: methods for identifying clinician research participation and metrics at scale

Background Clinician-scientists play a vital role in advancing health and medical research and health system innovation, yet their engagement in research, alongside their clinical role, is rarely measured in a systematic or comprehensive way. This longstanding gap in clinical workforce intelligence limits the ability of health systems to monitor research activity, design appropriate support for clinician-scientist career pathways, and allocate research resources effectively. This study aimed to develop and apply scalable methods to identify clinician-scientists and quantify their research contributions at a national level. Methods This article presents novel and scalable data linkage methods for identifying clinician-scientists, and quantifying their scholarly contributions and research impact, by linking national medical registration data with data derived from Scopus Author Profiles. The approach identifies research-active clinicians (clinician-scientists) and generates verified research metrics for each individual. The methods were applied to medical practitioners in one national jurisdiction. Results Applied to the full population of practising Australian medical practitioners ( n = 134,701), the methods identified 15,933 (11.83%) medical practitioners with Scopus Author Profiles and yielded the first national dataset of verified research metrics for a clinician-scientist workforce. The method supports disaggregation by key demographic and professional characteristics, enabling detailed analysis across professional registration categories, research type and scale, individual variables, and institutional affiliations. The resulting dataset facilitates insights into the distribution, scale, and impact of clinician research, as well as the extent of research collaboration and equity. Conclusions This study presents a transferable and scalable solution to a longstanding evidence gap in health workforce research. Systematically identifying clinician-scientists and quantifying their research activity can enhance the visibility of this workforce, support data-driven investment, and inform policies designed to strengthen research capability and capacity within health systems. The methods are adaptable to other clinical workforces, jurisdictions, and data sources, with clear implications for institutional reform and international collaboration. Improving the visibility of clinician-scientists offers opportunities to strengthen the clinician-scientist career pipeline, inform inclusive, data-driven health research policy, and support strategic investment in developing the research capability of the health workforce.