The Administrative Core of the Northwestern University (NU) Core Center for Clinical Research (CCCR) will be housed in the NU Feinberg School of Medicine Division of Rheumatology. This Core is responsible not only for CCCR management and operations, but also for specific CCCR missions. For organized and dedicated efforts to achieve these missions, we propose 3 Sub-Cores: the Mentoring Sub-Core will take charge of missions relating to scientific and career development of mentees, mentor development, and team cohesion; the Outreach Sub-Core will take charge of communication and enrichment missions, attracting investigators, furthering collaboration, and expanding the Research Community and fields of work; the Evaluation Sub-Core will be responsible for ongoing quality and productivity assessment of CCCR activities, leveraging excellence in this area within NUCATS (NU Clinical and Translational Sciences Institute, NU's CTSA). The Executive, Oversight, External Advisory (not as yet named), and Patient Advisory Committees will provide advisory support; these committees will include members with expertise in relevant diseases and conditions, methodologies, and in management of core facilities, as well as stakeholders. The overarching goal of the Administrative Core will be to support and organize our team of teams, i.e., the rich network that represents our Center, in order to optimize CCCR function and outcomes. Administrative Core aims are to: 1) provide the CCCR structure tailored to: a) our vision of interdisciplinary science and methodologies best supporting clinical research, and b) Core/Sub-Core conduct to ensure integration and synergy; 2) provide a structure that will sustain effective and efficient CCCR operations; 3) provide expertise and leadership to identify important projects and harness the CCCR to help them, maintaining highest rigor; 4) promote cross-Core and Core- Research Community interactions to foster interdisciplinary work and knowledge advancement; 5) optimize communication, cooperation, and collaboration among CCCR investigators and scientists in relevant fields at NU and elsewhere; 6) foster training and development of researchers, and support development of applications for independent funding; 7) foster innovative and high-impact exploratory projects within a pilot and feasibility program; 8) expand CCCR influence and contributions to our environment by disseminating opportunities to use Cores/Sub-Cores: 9) disseminate knowledge, empowering our research community and the scientific community at large; 10) evaluate (ongoing) to: a) help to ensure that each Core/Sub-Core is at the forefront to best position it to contribute to innovation, and b) assess outcomes of our CCCR's work prospectively, using a priori designated metrics that incorporate team science instruments; 11) lead a workshop in year 2 to include other funded CCCRs and key stakeholders, with the goal of better defining, capturing, and communicating the meaningful impacts of the work that is enabled by the CCCRs; 12) ensure that a data and resource sharing plan is implemented by each component of the CCCR.
| Jayabalan, Prakash; Kocherginsky, Masha; Chang, Alison et al. (2018) Physical Activity and Worsening of Radiographic Findings in Persons With or at Higher Risk of Knee Osteoarthritis. Arthritis Care Res (Hoboken) : |
