Health Research Alliance: A National Organization Fostering Links Between Reseearch and Practice

Bulletin:

Health Research Alliance members:
Check your calendar now to make sure you have reserved the dates for the spring, 2011 Members' Meeting: April 12-13, 2012, at the Liberty Hotel in Boston. Many thanks to our co-hosts: The Donaghue Foundation, the New York Stem Cell Foundation and The Medical Foundation, a division of Health Resources in Action. Expect to receive registration information by email in early February.
Health Research Alliance members: It is not too early to mark your calendars for the fall, 2012 Members' Meeting! The meeting has been scheduled for September 6-7, 2012, and will be hosted by The Foundation for the National Institutes of Health in Bethesda, Maryland.
Is your organization interested in becoming a member of the Health Research Alliance? Find out more.
Health Research Alliance
P.O. Box 13901
21 T. W. Alexander Drive
Research Triangle Park,
North Carolina 27709
The Grants Administration Working Group addresses a wide range of high-priority operational issues common to funders of health research, by sharing information, showing how a variety of different organizations approach a specific issue, and by defining and sharing recommended approaches and best practices.

In 2008, the Working Group implemented a listserv, HRAList, that provides member organizations an opportunity to query each other on grants administration issues. As the international economic situation worsened in the fall of 2008, the group also organized a series of conference calls and webinars on managing research award programs in a challenging economy.

Individual Development Plans (IDPs):
In January, 2007, members of the HRA Advisory Committee met to consider the benefits and implications of adding a requirement for an IDP as a component of health research and training awards for postdoctoral fellows and early career investigators. Despite data demonstrating the correlation between the use of IDPs and postdoctoral productivity, IDPs are not widely used in the mentoring of postdoctoral fellows. An IDP is a professional development tool that can help postdoctoral fellows and early career investigators identify professional development needs and career objectives. Specifically, the goals of the IDP are to:
  • Identify short-term needs to improve performance
  • Identify long-term career options and the training necessary to realize those options
  • Clarify work expectations
  • Foster communication between the advisor and the trainee
The Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB) has taken a leading role in promoting the use of the IDP. Check out FASEB's description of the goals, benefits and process of the IDP along with a list of references on self-assessment, the postdoctoral experience, career opportunities, and resources on non-academic careers. Also see FASEB's Sample Annual Review .

Description of other topics considered by the Grants Administration Working Group
Other topics researched by the group include reviewer conflict of interest policies, intellectual property and patent policies, and the mentoring of early career clinical investigators. A longstanding issue of great interest to the group is career development.

The group periodically reassesses interest in different topics, since both the environment and organizational needs change frequently.

All Alliance members are invited to participate in Grants Administration meetings, conference calls and events. The group is chaired by Pat Hinton, American Heart Association.