Advance-CTR

Professional Development

Find materials and resources for mentoring, team science, entrepreneurship, funding, and more.

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Professional Development

Find materials and resources for mentoring, team science, entrepreneurship, funding, and more.

*NEW RESOURCE* NIH ORWH Offers Career Development Mentoring Resources


The NIH Office of Research on Women’s Careers (ORWH) provides career development mentoring resources to help researchers create and maintain productive mentoring relationships. The page contains ORWH resources, trans-NIH resources, and non-federal resources.

National Research Mentoring Network 

This national network is designed to implement and disseminate innovative, evidence-based best practices to improve mentoring relationships at institutions across the country. NRMN connects highly knowledgeable and skilled mentors with motivated and diverse mentees, ranging from undergraduate students to early-career faculty, and facilitates long-term, culturally responsive interactions between them. NRMN is committed to establishing a culture in which historically underrepresented mentees successfully progress in their careers and contribute to the biomedical research enterprise. 

Looking for a Mentor?

Explore the National Research Mentoring Network's Virtual Mentorship Platform, where mentees are recommended to mentors based on compatibility and begin a 4-month guided virtual mentorship program. Postdocs, junior faculty, senior faculty, non-faculty researchers, and academic administrators may serve as mentors. Undergraduates, graduate students, and postdocs may serve as mentees.

Mentor Training from the University of Minnesota's CTSI

The Clinical and Translational Science Institute has developed a free, self-paced, professional development course designed to prepare faculty from a range of disciplines to be effective research mentors for junior faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and graduate students. 

National Center for Faculty: Development and Diversity

Brown University offers an institutional membership for affiliated faculty and staff. To login and access resources, click "Join NCFDD" and indicate your institutional affiliation. From there, users will be prompted to create a profile to sign in.  Brown faculty can also participate (at a discounted rate) for various faculty development in-person workshops that NCFDD administers. 

Brown University Faculty of Color Network

The group aims to help build community among faculty of color and establish sources of mentoring and professional development to meet the specific needs of senior, junior, and non-tenure track faculty of color as well as post-doctoral fellows of color at Brown. This website is meant to be a resource to provide information about the FOC Network and its programming, as well as share information about additional campus and community events and resources. 

The Young Scientist Survival Kit 

Every young scientist needs some help along the way: iBiology offers some excellent guidance from senior scientists who have walked in their shoes. 

At Brown University:

Researchers@Brown: Brown University's research-networking tool brings together publicly available information on the people, departments, and activities that collectively make up research and scholarship in all disciplines at Brown. Search by name or keyword to find faculty working in any given research area. Discover experts and influencers and see what they’re working on. Reach out and start collaborating. To get started, go to vivo.brown.edu. While you’re there, make sure your profile is up-to-date with your most recent publications and other information.

At the University of Rhode Island:

Health Expert Database: URI’s Health Expert Database is a single, convenient place to search for faculty in the university’s Academic Health Collaborative. Searches can be performed by keyword and/or areas of expertise. Profiles include information about research, service, and teaching. To get started, go to web.uri.edu/ahc-faculty/.

Articles and Multimedia Resources: 

Online Toolkits: 

Books for Further Reading: 

Organizations: 

Support: 

Resources: 

 

Watch Now: 4 Secrets to Take Your Idea Out of the Lab & Into the Market

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Resources from Advance RI-CTR's partners, the IDeA community & more: 

Advance Rhode Island Clinical and Translational Research (Advance RI-CTR)

Advance Rhode Island Clinical and Translational Research (Advance RI-CTR, U54GM115677) is a statewide Institutional Development Award for clinical and translational research (IDeA-CTR) funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Based at Brown University, Advance RI-CTR is a statewide collaboration between Rhode Island’s primary academic institutions, hospital systems, and community organizations. Advance RI-CTR supports Rhode Island investigators through funding, research resources and services, and professional development offerings. Advance RI-CTR aims to enhance "Health through Discovery" by fueling discoveries and collaborations that are responsive to the health priorities and disparities of Rhode Island’s diverse communities. 

Advance RI-CTR comprises two Administrative Cores (the Administrative Core and the Tracking and Evaluation Core), two Award Cores (the Pilot Projects Program and the Professional Development Core), and three Service Cores (the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design Core, the Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement Core, and the Community Engagement and Outreach Core).

Administrative Core: The Administrative Core serves as the central operations hub for Advance RI-CTR. It includes three Project Managers, a Communications Manager, a Data Manager and one Coordinator who each report to the Advance RI-CTR Administrative Director. These individuals support the PD/PI; Program Coordinator; Strategic Planning Coordinator, the IAC, EAC, Operations and Steering Committees; and the six Cores. Administrative Core personnel assist the Core Leads in program management and planning, tracking and evaluation, budget development, allocation of resources, reporting, and development of educational initiatives.

Pilot Projects Program: The Pilot Projects Program brings investigators together from institutions across the state to develop interdisciplinary collaborations that span the translational research spectrum. The program awards five to seven investigators per year with one-year grants of up to $75,000 each in direct costs for clinical and translational research. Awarded proposals must be interdisciplinary with a focus on clinical, translational, or community research. Priority is given to proposals that address statewide health priorities set forth by the Rhode Island Department of Health. Awardees gain the opportunity to experience planning and preparing research applications in an NIH format, respond to reviews, and learn grant management skills in a collaborative, cross-disciplinary environment. Awardees may also leverage Advance RI-CTR's research services in both the pre-proposal and post-award stages of their projects.

Professional Development Core: The Professional Development Core equips early-career health researchers in Rhode Island with the resources and training they need to build competitive research programs that improve population health in our state. The Core provides educational and mentoring opportunities to investigators at all career stages. The Mentored Research Awards program (MRAs) is geared toward early-career stage investigators, especially those from historically underrepresented groups in STEM. The MRAs are given annually to two to three investigators from Brown University and the University of Rhode Island. They are two-year awards that cover up to 75% salary up to $90,000 in direct costs. An additional $25,000 per year is also provided to cover research-related expenses or tuition (a Master's degree in Clinical and Translational Research from the Brown University School of Public Health is encouraged). Finally, the awards provide a structured mentoring program and training in clinical and translational research. Awardees are encouraged to take advantage of Advance RI-CTR's research services in both the pre-proposal and post-award stages of their projects. The Professional Development Core also offers the Advance-K Scholar Career Development Program (Advance-K) and the Advance RI-CTR Mentoring Training Program. Advance-K trains and supports highly qualified junior faculty in the preparation of individual, extramural career development award applications (NIH K series or equivalent), and connects them to resources, mentorship, and other career development opportunities. The program encourages applications that emphasize community engagement. Up to 10 Scholars are selected annually to participate in the program. Junior faculty candidates pursuing a career in clinical research or translational research from Brown, URI, and the affiliated hospital systems are eligible to apply. Advance-K Scholars follow a common curriculum along with a customized set of activities to meet individual learning goals and are required to participate in 2-hour, bi-weekly training sessions throughout the duration of the yearlong program. Scholars are expected to submit an application for individual funding (K01, K08, K23, or CDAs from the VA or foundations) by the end of the 12-month program period. The Mentoring Training Program is a 9-hour, peer-driven program that provides faculty mentors with skills and techniques to enhance communication with their mentees and improve outcomes for professional development and success. Five faculty from Brown University and the University of Rhode Island who are certified Mentor Facilitators from the National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) lead the trainings. The training sessions are adapted from NRMN and the Center for Improvement of Mentored Experiences in Research (CIMER). It is designed to help research mentors maximize the effectiveness of their mentoring relationships. All Rhode Island investigators and research staff are also eligible to receive clinical research training through various sponsored training, including but not limited to Public Responsibility in Medicine and Research (PRIM&R), and Good Clinical Practice (GCP) through the Professional Development Core. Finally, the Core offers regular workshops for entrepreneurship, team science, and grant writing. 

Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design Core (BERD): The BERD Core aims to empower investigators to design, interpret, and publish impactful health research. It offers research consultations and support to Rhode Island investigators who are seeking quantitative, psychometric, and qualitative research design and analysis support. The Biostatistics Core links investigators with multidisciplinary faculty members and experts in various methodological techniques including biostatistics, epidemiology, research design, qualitative data techniques, and measurement and evaluation in health-related research. The Core also makes available a variety of research training, including monthly REDCap workshops, the Qualitative Methods and Machine Learning Seminar Series, and regular seminars on research design and analysis, systematic review, and biostatistical methodology. 

Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement Core (BIBCE): The BIBCE Core works to transform the research capacity in Rhode Island for big data health research by enabling access to electronic health data through secure, inter-institutional infrastructure. The Core works closely with the Center for Computation and Visualization (CCV) and Brown University Library to address the breadth of data, technology, and computing needs for clinical and translational research. Through the Unified Research data Sharing and Analysis (URSA) Initiative, the Core provides expertise and infrastructure for accessing and using large-scale datasets for health-related research. This includes storage, management, and analysis of health data within high performance and secure computing environments at Brown. The Core also participates in the National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) Analytics Platform, which provides clinical data from more than 1.6 million COVID+ cases to RI investigators. The Core also offers consultative services for implementation science—from strategy and blueprints, to sustainability and policy implementation. Finally, BIBCE provides a wide variety of research training, including its annual Informatics and Implementation Science Learning Series and Machine Learning Seminar Series.

Community Engagement and Outreach Core (CEO): The CEO Core helps facilitate research endeavors that are relevant, accessible, and impactful to the entire state of Rhode Island. New in Phase II of Advance-CTR, this Core is built around a philosophy and culture of partnership and reciprocity. The CEO Core provides RI investigators with the training and guidance they need to conduct successful community-engaged research initiatives. These include offering investigators the opportunity to receive feedback from community stakeholders on their research ideas before they begin, and brokering partnerships between investigators and community stakeholders during each step of the research process. Community stakeholders, in turn, have the opportunity to participate in the dissemination of study results, including publication and dissemination of study findings to the general public and the communities who stand to benefit from knowledge production. This culture and the Core's commitment to community participation at every stage of the research process will help ensure that the CEO Core's activities are relevant to populations who experience health disparities and to the Rhode Island community at large. 

Clinical Research Support: All RI investigators have access to support for clinical research via Advance-CTR and the Lifespan Clinical Research Center. Investigators may request support through Advance RI-CTR that includes regulatory support, subject recruitment, specimen collection and biobanking.

Dedicated Space: More than 7,000 square feet is dedicated to Advance RI-CTR across all partner institutions in Rhode Island. Central offices are located in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, adjacent to the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and less than a mile from the Brown University School of Public Health, Lifespan and Care New England hospital systems. Other partners, including the Providence VA Medical Center and the Rhode Island Quality Institute are less than three miles away from the Administrative Core offices. This includes contiguous workspace in two dedicated suites for the BIBCE and Administrative Cores in a building adjacent to the Warren Alpert Medical School. Shared building-wide resources include a small 209 square-foot conference room with capacity of 8 people and a larger 365 square-foot conference room with a capacity of 16 people. The building is serviced by a 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) optical network (Cisco). State-of-the-art, audio visual conferencing equipment is used utilized for both internal and external audiences to facilitate a spectrum of Advance-CTR needs, including administrative planning, professional development, educational outreach, local discussions, team project meetings, Advisory Committee meetings, NIGMS reporting, and multi-site forums.

Advance RI-CTR: Summary 

Advance Rhode Island Clinical and Translational Research (Advance RI-CTR): Advance RI-CTR partners were awarded an IDeA-CTR grant by NIGMS in 2016 as well as a renewal award in 2021 (Advance-CTR, U54GM115677). Advance Clinical and Translational Research (Advance RI-CTR) is a statewide Institutional Development Award for clinical and translational research (IDeA-CTR) funded by the National Institute of General Medical Sciences. Based at Brown University, Advance RI-CTR is a statewide collaboration between Rhode Island’s primary academic institutions, hospital systems, and community organizations. Advance RI-CTR supports Rhode Island investigators through funding, research resources and services, and professional development offerings. Ultimately, Advance RI-CTR aims to fuel discoveries and collaborations that are responsive to the health priorities of Rhode Island’s diverse communities. Advance RI-CTR comprises two Administrative Cores (the Administrative Core and the Tracking and Evaluation Core), two Award Cores (the Pilot Projects Program and the Professional Development Core), and three Service Cores (the Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design Core, the Biomedical Informatics, Bioinformatics, and Cyberinfrastructure Enhancement Core, and the Community Engagement and Outreach Core).

More than 7,000 square feet is dedicated to Advance RI-CTR across all partner institutions in Rhode Island. Central offices are located in downtown Providence, Rhode Island, adjacent to the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University and less than a mile from the Brown University School of Public Health, Lifespan and Care New England hospital systems. Other partners, including the Providence VA Medical Center, are less than three miles away from the Administrative Core offices. This includes contiguous workspace in two dedicated suites for the BIBCE and Administrative Cores in a building adjacent to the Warren Alpert Medical School. Shared building-wide resources include a small 209 square-foot conference room with capacity of 8 people and a larger 365 square-foot conference room with a capacity of 16 people. The building is serviced by a 10 Gigabits per second (Gbps) optical network (Cisco). State-of-the-art, audio visual conferencing equipment is used utilized for both internal and external audiences to facilitate a spectrum of Advance RI-CTR needs, including administrative planning, professional development, educational outreach, local discussions, team project meetings, Advisory Committee meetings, NIGMS reporting, and multi-site forums.

Please contact AdvanceRI@brown.edu with questions.

Did you know that as a member of Rhode Island's clinical and translational research community, you are eligible for a complimentary membership to the Association for Clinical and Translational Science?

ACTS is a community of 5,000 professionals and 50 institutions, with membership benefits that include: 

We encourage all members of the CTR community to sign up and utilize this network of resources and stakeholders. To join, please email us at AdvanceRI@brown.edu, or visit the ACTS website to learn more.

DIAMOND (Development, Implementation, and AssessMent Of Novel Training in Domain-based competencies) is a NIH-funded, collaborative learning space for clinical research professionals and other members of research study teams.

Training and assessment items included in the DIAMOND collection are searchable by competency domain and provide information and links to offerings for study teams.

Resources and trainings are available in the following eight domains: 

  1. Scientific concepts and research design
  2. Ethical and participant safety considerations 
  3. Investigational products development and regulation 
  4. Clinical study operations (GCPS)
  5. Study and site management
  6. Data management and informatics
  7. Leadership and professionalism 
  8. Communication and teamwork 

Contributors can also share resources and best practices by uploading materials from their institutions (contributing institutions maintain full ownership and control of their training content). New items are added regularly, so check back often for the most up-to-date results. 

Explore the DIAMOND portal

New Resources, Direct to Your Inbox

Our weekly email newsletter includes the latest resources available to RI investigators.