We live in an unprecedented time of scientific progress, which is increasingly dominated by a paradox: more money is spent on health care research, development and delivery, and yet health outcomes, quality of care and quality of research is by all measures considered suboptimal. The efficiency of current research system increasingly undermines public trust in science, which ultimately leads to corrosive effect on societies' well-being, as witnessed during the COVID19 pandemic(1-4). The research system must improve. It is responsibility of scientific community to identify "good" from "bad" research practices and to weed out the latter. However, the public also needs to understand that 100% efficient research is not theoretically possible, remain skeptical about exaggerated claims ("hypes") as good science typically progresses incrementally. To realize these goals, this talk will review practices of avoidable and unavoidable research waste and call for establishing new metrics (index of research waste). To improve research system each country/organization should undertake regular audits of its research practice activities and make data publicly available. Collecting these data may inform development of research waste metrics to complement traditional scientometric indices that do not capture this important dimension of scientific activity (5-7).