The overall purpose of the NIH Diversity Program Consortium (DPC) Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC) at UCLA is to provide the DPC's grantees with coordination and operational support, conduct data coordination/collection and program evaluation, and disseminate best practices. In this second five-year funding period, the DPC will be comprised of the Building Infrastructure Leading to Diversity (BUILD) awards and newly proposed DPC Dissemination and Translation Awards (DaTA), as well as an expanded set of National Research Mentoring Network (NRMN) programs including a NRMN Coordinating Center, a NRMN Resource Center and up to15 NRMN U01 intervention awards. The CEC is comprised of four cores, the Administrative Core (AC), the Data Coordination Core (DCC), the Evaluation Core (EC) and a new Communication and Dissemination Core (CDC) in recognition of the expanded growth of the DPC and the critical importance of both internal DPC communications and disseminating best practices. Consistent with this second phase of the project (RFA-RM-18-005), the CEC will: 1) Provide a centralized administrative structure to support and enhance communication within the CEC, between the CEC and the DPC, and to conduct an evaluation of CEC processes and overall performance (Administrative Core; AC); 2) Provide state-of-the-art data collection and data management expertise, as well as key services and training/capacity building for DPC partners for the optimal collection of DPC data to most effectively support the overall research aims of the DPC and advance institutional sustainability (Data Coordination Core; DCC); 3) Conduct multilevel, comprehensive assessments of the impact of the DPC using traditional (e.g. qualitative, quantitative) and innovative (e.g. social network analysis) research methods with an emphasis on DPC defined Hallmarks of Success at the student, faculty, and institutional levels (Evaluation Core; EC); and 4) Develop high-impact dissemination channels for DPC best practices to peer institutions, NIH, and other key stakeholders to create a transformative and lasting impact on the national biomedical research training pipeline and ultimately increase diversity in the national biomedical research workforce (Communications and Dissemination Core; DCC). As a U-award, we work in close collaboration with NIH in the design and execution of all of our activities, in addition to being responsive to DPC awardees and facilitating consortium leadership and activity-specific groups that help guide our activities. In summary, the CEC will promote a collaborative environment across the DPC, provide high-quality evaluation of BUILD and NRMN activities/interventions, and develop sustainable research tools for longer-term dissemination of DPC findings, evaluation methods, and best practices nationally and internationally that will remain available even after the current funding period ends.
The NIH has a program designed to test the best ways to help disabled students, students from poor families, and students and junior faculty from minority groups underrepresented in the biomedical sciences to become a scientist. The Coordination and Evaluation Center (CEC) at UCLA will evaluate the results of colleges and universities that are testing different strategies as part of this large NIH program. The CEC will determine the best strategies and then help to spread the word across the nation about the best practices that work best to increase diversity in the medical science so that other schools and organizations can benefit as well. 1
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