ABOUT

Community Reviewer Training Program

The University of Southern California (USC), Children’s Hospital of Los Angeles and the Southern California Clinical and Translational Science Institute values the opinion and input of our community reviewers. We work hard to design a grant review process that is a rewarding and informative experience.

The Community Reviewer Training Program (CRTP) is a newly added component of the SC CTSI Pilot Funding Program.

The Pilot Funding Program is a grant funding process used by our institute to help advance biomedical research. These awards are intended to support faculty in their development and testing of new approaches and/or tools that increase the speed, efficiency, safety and/or quality of clinical, community, health outcomes and/or implementation research. Successful applicants define challenges or barriers in the conduct of research and propose the development of a solution or process that can be tested within the pilot project and/or with subsequent extramural funding. This mechanism is not intended to fund basic or preclinical research.

Preference and highest priority is given to projects that demonstrate a clear path to sustaining extramural funding or to direct implementation of improvements in clinical and translational research processes. Proposals are evaluated using a National Institutes of Health style peer review process. Some examples of past research funded through this mechanism include:

“Identifying determinants of pelvic floor disorders diagnosis among Latina women in Los Angeles County’
“Validation and Prediction of a Novel Biomechanical Assessment of Fall Risk in People Post-Stroke”
“Exploring environmental influences on longitudinal markers of cardiovascular health in emerging adults”

The community grant review process is a serious process; the decisions we make can have serious impact on research at USC and in the surrounding urban communities.

What is it?

USC is looking for community members to help decide which health research ideas receive grant funding.

Get trained on the federal grant proposal review process and participate in a National Institutes of Health-style review session.
Build your resume (great career development opportunity)
Provide your valuable input on health-related research grant applications.
Receive a program certificate for completing the program.
Get compensated for your time.

Purpose

The purpose of this project is to implement the CTSA Community Reviewer Training Program (CCRTP) across a consortium of 5 CTSA hubs. The SC CTSI in partnership with the Translational Research Institute (TRI) at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS), Ohio State University, Virginia Commonwealth University, and the University of California, Irvine, we aim to implement an integrative and innovative community reviewer training program developed and validated at UAMS which is designed to increase the knowledge of community representatives regarding the meaning of research and how their participation in grant review enhances the rigor and impact of funded pilot grant applications.

The five hubs participating in the present project will implement and evaluate impact of this training on community reviewers’ knowledge of the grant review process and the qualitative contribution of the community reviewers to the quality and impact of work funded. The immediate goal of this project is to implement and assess across multiple CTSA hubs a scalable mechanism which allows representatives of communities affected by a disease or condition to meaningfully participate in review of pilot grant research proposals. Our long term goal is to enhance the review process across the CTSA consortium and other funding agencies, by systematic integration of a community perspective. Successful completion of this proposal will address CTSA Strategic Goal 3 of promoting the integration of special and underserved populations in translational research across the human lifespan.