(Administrative Oversight) The PI/Director of the proposed National Pediatric Rehabilitation Resource Center (PedRehab Ctr) will have primary responsibility for the overall administrative oversight with clear distribution of shared administrative and scientific leadership responsibilities among the center's multidisciplinary team of 6 scientists, each of whom serves as Lead for one of the designated core components: Didactic Interactions, Mentored Collaborative Opportunities, Pilot Studies, Techniques Development, and Promoting Center Expertise. All team members are engaged in ongoing clinical trials pediatric rehabilitation research, share a history of productive interdisciplinary collaborations, and assume national leadership roles in organizations and research networks in pediatric medical rehabilitation.
The specific aims for Administrative Oversight are: 1) to ensure that PedRehab Ctr core components function well, interact frequently, and strategically utilize their resources to achieve the overall goals for PedRehab Ctr; 2) to engage the PedRehab Ctr team of scientists in a highly efficient, stimulating, and rewarding manner that welcomes their engagement in the administrative aspects of Ped Rehab Ctr; 3) to convene an independent National Advisory Board to assist in reviewing and improving plans and operations, in ways that encourage Board members to join us as colleagues in areas relevant to their research expertise; 4) to achieve consensus about and then establish a continuous information system (open, verifiable, easy to summarize) that can yield useful, timely data about our progress and impact on the targeted research community; and 5) to promote a scientifically vibrant and new P2C in pediatric rehabilitation that will interact with and strengthen the national network of infrastructure support centers sponsored by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver NICHD's National Center for Medical Rehabilitation Research. Our PedRehab Ctr team strongly endorses a model of lateral, shared, and joint decision-making among team members. We seek to minimize administrative burden and avoid duplicative efforts for our team members and support staff as well as for those who use our core's resources. Above all, we seek to leverage the available funds for the PedRehab Ctr to yield maximal benefit for clinical pediatric rehabilitation research.
