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and 1999 with approximately $12 million, to evaluate the impact of structural changes introduced into Australian general practice and to determine the effects of those changes on clinical outcomes, quality of care and effi-ciency, and in part, to introduce a research culture into general practice.1 By June 2002, 204 projects had been completed, 36 were in progress, and eight had been discontinued.2 General Practice Evaluation Program pro-jects were funded as ‘seeding grants’: research lasting up to 1 year, limited to $15 000, and aimed at new researchers, the identification of research questions, the development of methodologies, or to direct future research (n=96); and ‘project grants’ for larger projects taking several years to complete, and comprehensive evaluation research (n=144).3,4 Assessing GPEP research output To justify return on investment, there has been an emphasis on measuring research output.5 Measuring the number of peer reviewed papers is one way to quantify research output.6 Although limited in ability to capture effect on clinical practice and policy, such measures are currently the best stan-dardised indicator of output across disciplines, and has previously been used as a broad indicator of research activity in Australian general practice.7–9 Project aim There is a weak research culture in general practice.9–13 Austral ian general practice research output is low,7–10 including GPEP output.14 We decided to examine this further, looking at the peer review publication rate of GPEP projects (number of projects pub-lished). We decided not to measure impact factor as it is not considered an accurate indi-cation of research or journal quality.15–1