Dr. Annette Olson | Courtesy of NISBRE, 2018
Over the past 17 years, RCP has led 70 panel assessments of the implementation of the NIH INBRE (IDeA Network for Biomedical Research Excellence) awards in 14 states. INBRE awards are provided to collaborative, state-wide, multi-institutional networks in order to build biomedical research capacity in eligible states. RCP is regularly asked to convene and lead expert panels to assess the progress, challenges, and impacts of INBRE programs. RCP summarizes findings from these expert assessments and provides recommendations in a confidential report to the leadership of state INBRE programs.
Earlier this year, RCP began a retrospective self-study of our archive of panel reports provided to INBRE programs. Carrying out this study allows us to take a step back from the many state assessments we have completed, and look at commonalities among reports across states and years. By doing so, we can explore parallels among states in terms of the challenges faced and recommendations provided, and share this information with the INBRE community. The study is also intended to prompt an internal discussion on the best practices for INBRE site visits and reports.
The initial phase of the study has focused on nine reports from nine separate states. In June 2018, initial, overarching, and nonconfidential results were presented to the NIH IDeA community at the 2018 National IDeA Symposium of Biomedical Research Excellence (NISBRE) Conference in Washington, DC, with the goal of indicating common trends that may help create discussion about best practices for improving INBRE programs. For these nine most recent reports, RCP presented commonalities among the reports regarding the strengths, challenges, strategies, and impacts that the INBRE programs have exhibited. RCP also presented a comparison of four of the recent reports to reports from the same states five years earlier, to show which challenges and strengths, such as in the implementation of education programs, have changed over time.
The full presentation can be viewed here.