1. Syed Ahmed Jeanne Hossenlopp
Strategic Planning Progress Initial Report from Think Tank Meetings in December 2013
Syed Ahmed
Jeanne Hossenlopp

2. Gathering Insight and Input
The purpose of this presentation is to share what we learned from the December 2013 Think Tank Meetings with local basic, bench and clinical researchers
Still planning for…
Citizen’s Advisory Council Meetings to discuss input and brainstorm ideas and opportunities
Engaging business and industry
Aligning with CTSI Strategic Planning

3. Think Tank Meetings December 2013
The purpose of the meetings was to gain insight and explore future possibilities of community engaged research in every aspect of the translational continuum.
Participants were from the various partners of the CTSI and primarily conduct research that does not directly involve community based organizations or community based participatory research or community engaged research.
Meeting Goals:
Convene a diverse group of scientists from the local institutions of the CTSI
Obtain an understanding of needs and desires for community engagement in the these representative groups’ work
Gain recommendations of priorities and potential future activities that will deepen involvement of community engagement
The primary desired outcome of the 2 Think Tank Meetings is that, by the end of the 2nd meeting, the CEKF would like to have gained a list of recommendations for future application of Community Engagement in every phase of research along the translational continuum.
1 pager to send with meeting reminders: Community Engagement Definitions, current CEKF Overview Document, IOM Report, and the Basic Questions we will be asking. We will send meeting reminders on Friday prior to the meeting and the day of the meeting because of the Thanksgiving holiday.
Things we want to be sure to convey:
Community Engagement can occur on multiple levels and there are various “grades” of engagement that research projects can involve. We want to provide the concept that there are potential activities of the most basic type, such as getting community input or access to talking about research with the public all the way to examples of model trans-disciplinary, translational research that incorporates CEnR and the principles of community based participatory research.
We want these scientists to gain the confidence that we, as a key function and as researchers, are open to changing (“thinking more like a basic scientist”) as well as asking them to broaden their consideration of the scope of community in research.
We are hoping to expand our stakeholder engagement and want to find ways to offer programming, assistance, support and collaboration with more T0 and T1 researchers.
That we have things to offer to them such as connection to a diverse population, consultancy, and opportunities to interact with community. We also want to know what specifically they could offer to existing and future collaborations.

4. 1st Think Tank Meeting We asked questions about:
High interest research directions
Major barriers
Major assets
Ideas for facilitating or operationalizing Community Engagement through all phases of the translational continuum

5. High Interest Research Areas Top 6 in Alphabetic Order
Addictions
Asthma/Allergy
Cancer
Cardiovascular Disease/Stroke/Rehabilitation
Diabetes
Obesity/Metabolic syndrome

6. Major Barriers
Overarching theme: Lacking the ability to connect to appropriate contacts
for understanding research in the community,
for obtaining training for working in the community,
for finding institutional support,
for trusting and understanding research from the community
Researchers also felt isolated and disconnected from other disciplines
Fear and competition beginning early in career and training

7. Major Assets
Significant potential with existing active community-academic partnerships and health research related activity
Local academic and research institutions have complimentary and similar missions with diversity of strengths and assets as well as a willingness to collaborate
Over 20 local efforts and institutional resources/research projects or laboratories that were specifically identified in group notes

8. Ideas for Facilitating or Operationalizing CE across Translational Research Continuum
Collecting information about research projects, community research questions, researcher and institutional expertise to enacting institutional change from student curriculum to promotion and tenure
Make connections through convening groups, communicating news, administratively supporting inter-institutional, inter-disciplinary team efforts
Develop funding support for CEnR in basic and clinical research areas
Develop deeper partnerships with business and industry

9. 2nd Think Tank Meeting We asked questions about:
How individuals would like to incorporate community engagement in their work?
What resources would they need to do this?
How to access already existing resources across institutions to facilitate collaboration in Community Engagement?

10. Popular ways to Incorporate CE
Use community input as to how current research would help the community or be useful
Build more connections and improve communication about what research was already in place

11. Resources needed to do CE
Reoccurring theme: Need for matchmaking or networking opportunities to meet people outside of their individual institution and field of research.
Additional education and professional development in order to do work with the community
Examples of success stories of community engaged work that spans the translational continuum
Guidance and support for how to operationalize Community Engagement with own work
This theme came up in all three areas suggesting building in the time to get outside of the lab or clinic or office to meet new colleagues is important to advance new team work.

12. How to access already existing resources across institutions?
Getting faculty and students from multiple institutions involved in already occurring events (i.e. pair up expertise on grants, look for volunteers to judge poster contests or review research)
Using patents to generate revenue for new projects or combining patents between institutions to increase revenue for projects seemed to bring momentum for identifying institutional barriers to overcome
Start small and build a project from small wins would provide an example of success and be able to pull researchers with diverse backgrounds from each institution particularly if interested in same disease area
In the group comments it is mentioned that assistance is needed in bringing the community to the table and incentives may be needed to encourage additional training for working with the community.

13. CTSI Executive Committee Update

14. Citizen’s Advisory Council
We have some preliminary notes from the October meeting group discussion
Next quarterly meeting can be focused on brainstorming and input from CAC
We will also be discussing in today’s meeting – reaching out to business/industry
Suggestions/Insight and Input?