The core objective of this heavily revised and re-invigorated Stanford CTSA-associated KL2 program is to provide high-quality personalized training in clinical and translational research and education (CTRE) to junior faculty. Training will encompass the entire translational spectrum from T0-1 to T4, irrespective of the individual Scholar?s current research focus. At the completion of their training, these young ?CTR? Scholars will have acquired the knowledge, skills, and attitudes necessary to address impactful questions, author grants and manuscripts, compete effectively for external funding, develop mentoring and team building strategies, and understand how to develop and follow their career development plans.
We aim to enable our Scholars to excel at their research-based positions in academia and also in government, not-for-profit, and industry-based biomedical research enterprises. We expect that the research careers of our Scholars will be focused on innovation, discovery, implementation, and dissemination of new knowledge, a longstanding Stanford tradition. Specific components will include: ? Didactic instruction embedded within a degree opportunity or a more customized selection of courses ? A multi-faceted mentoring program, starting with a Career Development Plan, that will meld the perspectives of research mentors with the career mentors and KL2 leadership ? A professional development core, organized to cover all topics and competencies identified by NCATS and the CTSAs as central to CTR including research ethics, research reproducibility, compliance, and good clinical practice ? Training in team science, community-engaged participatory research, and regulatory sciences within a comprehensive life-course framework. Stanford KL2 appointments will be for two years. We are applying for 4 or 5 new positions per year to result in nine enrolled KL2 Scholars in our training program at steady state. All future Scholars will be on a confirmed path to become Stanford junior faculty. Rigorous short-, medium-, and long-term metrics for evaluations of trainees and the program itself, are designed to assure continuous improvement. Our newly reframed KL2 program will emphasize teamwork and elements of design-based thinking, under the premise that clinical and translational medicine at all stages is a coherent scientific specialty that bridges all disciplinary areas, spanning the life course, from the discovery of targets for treatment and prevention to effecting change at the bedside and advancing the health of populations.
