[How to establish and organize research activities]

The goal of this article is to introduce how to establish and organize research activities. There are many questions to be answered to make our clinical levels higher and more sophisticated, and some of them may also trigger research activities. We have two options, clinical study and basic research, and combination of these two methods is an ideal way to find answers to these questions. Also, cutting edge methodologies often result in some breakthroughs in our research field. Collaboration with experts is helpful for application of these new methodologies, and it facilitates establishing network of researchers. Finally, based on results of many excellent studies (both basic and clinical), we design large scale randomized clinical trials, to verify whether these research products contribute to improvement in our clinical activity. Excellent results give some hints to a next series of studies, and in this context, reviewing and updating the achievements are also important. Organizing study groups facilitates these activities, and the Japanese Society of Anesthesiologists has recently started a project to activate research activity.