Strengthening and Sustaining Inter-Institutional Research Collaborations and Partnerships.

Cecilia M Shikuma,Shelia A Mcclure,Elizabeth O Ofili,Brian M Rivers,Emma Fernández-Repollet,William M Southerland,Clayton C Yates,Jerris R Hedges,Vincent Craig Bond,Gene D’Amour,Deepak Kumar,Richard Yanagihara,Shafiq A Khan,Winston E Thompson,Sandra Harris-Hooker,Karam F A Soliman

doi:10.3390/ijerph18052727

Abstract

Inter-institutional collaborations and partnerships play fundamental roles in developing and diversifying the basic biomedical, behavioral, and clinical research enterprise at resource-limited, minority-serving institutions. In conjunction with the Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) Program National Conference in Bethesda, Maryland, in December 2019, a special workshop was convened to summarize current practices and to explore future strategies to strengthen and sustain inter-institutional collaborations and partnerships with research-intensive majority-serving institutions. Representative examples of current inter-institutional collaborations at RCMI grantee institutions are presented. Practical approaches used to leverage institutional resources through collaborations and partnerships within regional and national network programs are summarized. Challenges and opportunities related to such collaborations are provided.

Highlights

The Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program, currently administered by the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD), has historically provided funding to build research infrastructure at resource-limited academic institutions serving minority communities [1]
The RCMI Centers often lack a critical mass of extramurally funded subject-matter experts in key research areas and may have deficiencies in specific technical core instrumentation and services
This interactive panel discussion addressed the approaches used by RCMI Centers for inter-institutional collaborations and partnerships to further expand investigator access to scientific resources, to assemble mentoring teams to accelerate career development of junior investigators, and to foster community engagement for dissemination and implementation research

Summary

Introduction

The RCMI grantee institutions have demonstrated significant success in fostering basic biomedical and translational research and investigator development, through such National Institutes of Health (NIH) infrastructure support [2]. The RCMI program has recently transitioned from a G12 funding mechanism to U54 RCMI Specialized Centers (RCMI Centers), focusing on basic, clinical and behavioral research impacting the science of minority health and health disparities. Scientists at these RCMI Centers are to develop research careers emphasizing successful collaborations. Scientific leaders at the RCMI Centers are expected to develop “standards and other mechanisms to maximize interoperability between internal systems and systems in external organizations . . . likely to enhance collaborations with other research consortia and networks” [3]

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