Stakeholder views about the responsibilities of principal investigators in multicenter randomized controlled trials

Although members of most stakeholder groups participating in Delphi surveys view involvement of an academic principal investigator with overall responsibility for a multicenter randomized controlled trial as very important, there are notable differences depending on the respondent's perspective, the specific trial-related task, and the source of funding for the trial. In addition, principal investigators generally view an academic principal investigator as more important to the validity of a publicly funded multicenter randomized controlled trial than to the that of an industry-funded trial. These findings highlight the need to clarify the real-world practices of clinical trial leadership across diverse settings and to assess how those practices align with widely shared norms.