Try looking on their web page to see if it is a for-profit or non-profit agency. Try searching a database like Academic Search Complete to see if you can find any newspaper or journal article about the sponsoring agency. Do they sponsor a lot of research? Has any of the research they have sponsored in the past been questioned?
Some research is sponsored by an institution, such as the U.S. government or a non-profit or private company. If the research project is sponsored by someone, you will want to investigate who that is and if that could impact how the research was done. For example, a pharmaceutical company that sponsors research on a particular medication may mean that the research is not entirely bias-free.
