The Penn State Clinical and Translational Science Institute (CTSI) Pilot Wrap-Around Support Initiative, implemented in the 2023 pilot funding cycle, was designed to help research teams access comprehensive research support for their pilot projects throughout the entire funding cycle. The overall goal of the initiative is to support researchers to improve timely and successful completion of project aims with a high likelihood of receiving follow-on external funding to advance clinical and translational science. This initiative builds upon existing CTSI resources by adding new support mechanisms, including Core consultations during application development, a pilot project Principal Investigator (PI) orientation meeting, and team science collaboration planning for funded teams. In the 2023 and 2024 funding cycles, we received 55 letters of intent and 23 invited full applications. Pilot project PIs engaged in each of our new and existing support mechanisms to various degrees, resulting in six funded projects that started July 1, 2024 and four funded projects set to begin July 1, 2025. Plans for the initiative include supporting access to clinical research staff through a CTSI staffing program and overarching pilot project evaluation to guide future programmatic improvement.

The Rapid Acceleration of Diagnostics–Underserved Populations’ COVID-19 Equity Evidence Academy (RADx-UP EA) was a series of virtual conferences hosted between 2021 and 2023 that assembled community members, researchers, and governmental leaders from across the US to discuss and devise ways to promote equity in COVID-19 testing and vaccination. Using community-engaged methodologies in its design and implementation, this series provided a framework and forum for community and academic partners to engage in collaborative idea generation and consensus building during a public health emergency. The ideas and strategies gained during the EAs were disseminated to inform future research and action related to COVID-19. This conference paper highlights the specific engagement approaches used and the themes and recommendations generated. This model and its findings have broad utility beyond RADx-UP and can be used by researchers and practitioners to inform and advance community-engaged research and practice in diverse public health settings.

There is a general separation between medical and business education, despite the substantial intersection of these fields in hospital and industry settings. This separation hinders medical innovators, who rarely have opportunities to see how entrepreneurial concepts apply to the translation of medical innovation. To address this, the Office of Entrepreneurship at Mayo Clinic Florida provides experiential entrepreneurial training through an internal pitch competition: the alligator tank (AT). This study evaluates the impact and efficacy of the first seven years of the AT. Key metrics include a modified technology readiness level (TRL), determined by the presence of a disclosure, prototype, and preliminary data. A high TRL is not indicative of success in the pitch competition, leveling the playing field for early-stage inventions. The AT is characterized by broad representation across academic and professional ranks, departments, and genders, as well as strong participant retention. Innovators with prior disclosures are more likely to win the AT, presumably due to their experience. The AT serves as an institution-wide initiative that cultivates an inclusive, supportive innovation culture, fosters interdisciplinary medical innovation, and helps advance innovation maturity. Adopting the AT framework may help similar medical systems build an innovation ecosystem within their institutions.

In 2009, the University of Michigan’s Michigan Institute for Clinical and Health Research developed a three-session K Writing workshop. Beginning in 2016, we implemented a non-attendance fee to encourage attendance across the three sessions. We examined whether this fee improved attendance, increased submission of an NIH K or R grant proposal, and improved success rates. Between 2012 and 2021, 373 participants attended the workshop. After the non-attendance fee was implemented, significantly more participants attended all three sessions of the workshop, and there was a statistical trend suggesting an increase in the success rate, while submission rates remained constant.

This article describes the Implementation Science (IS) Scholars Program at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS). The program’s goal is to translate knowledge, approaches, and methods from IS to front-line clinicians in an academic medical center, thereby supporting its goals as a learning health system and promoting a dynamic workforce of IS-informed change leaders. Initiated in 2020, the program is relatively unique in that it attempts to translate concepts and knowledge from IS to clinicians to improve their skills as implementers and change agents. The program is supported by the Translational Research Institute, the UAMS’ awardee of the Clinical and Translational Science Award Program. The two-year program provides 20% salary coverage, bespoke didactics, and close mentoring on a Scholar-initiated project to improve care in their clinical context. The program has trained four cohorts of Scholars over the program’s initial five years. We describe the program, our evaluation of it thus far, and future plans. The program has contributed to numerous healthcare improvements and served as a gateway to future implementation and other research activities among some Scholars.

Multicenter clinical trials are essential for evaluating interventions but often face significant challenges in study design, site coordination, participant recruitment, and regulatory compliance. To address these issues, the National Institutes of Health’s National Center for Advancing Translational Sciences established the Trial Innovation Network (TIN). The TIN offers a scientific consultation process, providing access to clinical trial and disease experts who provide input and recommendations throughout the trial’s duration, at no cost to investigators. This approach aims to improve trial design, accelerate implementation, foster interdisciplinary teamwork, and spur innovations that enhance multicenter trial quality and efficiency. The TIN leverages resources of the Clinical and Translational Science Awards (CTSA) program, complementing local capabilities at the investigator’s institution. The Initial Consultation process focuses on the study’s scientific premise, design, site development, recruitment and retention strategies, funding feasibility, and other support areas. As of 6/1/2024, the TIN has provided 431 Initial Consultations to increase efficiency and accelerate trial implementation by delivering customized support and tailored recommendations. Across a range of clinical trials, the TIN has developed standardized, streamlined, and adaptable processes. We describe these processes, provide operational metrics, and include a set of lessons learned for consideration by other trial support and innovation networks.