The Administrative Unit for the renewal of the MCRC has the overarching aim of providing the structure for the MCRC to succeed in serving as a nidus for productive and creative clinical research related to the rheumatic diseases on the UCSF Campus, a goal which has been achieved in the current cycle of funding. In pursuit of this goal, the Administrative Unit 1) monitors, assesses, and, if necessary, provides a corrective course for the funded MCRC projects. Development and Feasibility Study, and Methodology Core Unit and, 2) creates a structure that will foster the development of research in the rheumatic diseases funded by sources other than the MCRC. One crucial aspect of the latter function is to provide the intellectual climate, professional expertise, and data sources for UCSF trainees and junior faculty to succeed in developing clinical research careers. Thus, the success of the Administrative Unit depends equally upon the quality and quantity of research output explicitly funded through the MCRC mechanism and through the development of successful research collaborations, including those initiated by fellows and junior faculty, that would not exist were it not for the MCRC itself. Most tangibly, the success of the 18 trainees of the MCRC in launching clinical research careers attests to the successful pursuit of the second aim in the current cycle of funding. In pursuit of these aims the Administrative Unit has an executive committee and Internal and External Advisory Committees. In addition, we propose the creation of a Graduate's Council to provide mentoring to the current trainees associated with the MCRC; the members of the Council are the most senior five of the 18 past or current trainees, all five of whom have launched successful academic careers. The Administrative Unit has organized a weekly conference among faculty and fellows to ensure that projects using MCRC data are proceeding successfully and a weekly meeting among the staff responsible for data collection and data management. We have also created a monthly campus-wide research conference on clinical research on topics relevant to the MCRC and an annual conference with a similar group of researchers at the University of British Columbia. The combination of the committee structure, teaching sessions, and meetings among staff and faculty ensure the successful completion of the research of the MCRC.
The research of the proposed MCRC will be focused on various causal mechanisms for differences in outcomes for persons with SLE and IRA; a crucial health policy issue. The Administrative Unit is structured to foster the research addressing this issue both by ensuring the completion of the MCRC projects and by using the resources of the MCRC and its data to expand the amount of research.
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