Wayne State University (WSU) is committed to the establishment of an academic environment that will increase the efficiencies and speed of clinical and translational research by creating an infrastructure that fosters interdisciplinary research and enhances training of the next generation of biomedical investigators scientists. Our institution has had a long-standing commitment to multidisciplinary research as evidenced by the establishment by the University of the Commission on Interdisciplinary Studies in 1992, and its embodiment in WSU's five-year strategic plans for 2001 and 2006. The University has given the Center for Clinical and Translational Research (CCTR) its highest priority as evidenced by the creation of its first Presidential Planning Commission. This Commission is charged with identifying, evaluating and recommending institutional changes required to achieve strategic goals of this planning application. We envision a new academic entity with an infrastructure that insures efficient operational processes, productive degree granting educational programs, community involvement, and development of novel scientific discoveries that will lead to new therapeutic modalities. The objective of this planning-grant application is to lay the foundations for a competitive Institutional Clinical and Translational Science Award application. Expected outcomes of the planning process are significant because they will establish a new academic discipline of Clinical and Translational Research at WSU, as well as a Center for Clinical and Translational Research that will foster and expand transdisciplinary research at WSU. This will represent joint collaborative interactions among the WSU schools/colleges including Engineering, Graduate Programs, Liberal Arts and Sciences, Medicine, Nursing, Pharmacy and Health Sciences, and Social Work. The CCTR will possess cross-cutting authority with respect to existing academic units including necessary governance, administration and evaluative components. The CCTR will have a training and career development program that will include a doctoral degree in the discipline of Clinical and Translational Research, and outreach components to our affiliated institutions and care providers in other parts of Michigan. The long-term goals are: (1) to foster and optimize multidisciplinary clinical and translational research at Wayne State University, its affiliates and collaborating institutions elsewhere in Michigan; and (2) to develop a true academic home for clinical and translational research that will impact the healthcare of the citizens of the United States. Implicit in undertaking this planning process is our willingness to acknowledge and overcome roadblocks/problems/issues at all levels of our institution that are inherent to making the organizational and cultural changes necessary to build on the strong and extensive foundations in clinical and translational research that are already in place at Wayne State University. ? ? ?
