Center for Suicide Research and Prevention - Administrative Core

The Administrative Core (AC) will provide overall support and integration of operations for the proposed Center for Suicide Research and Prevention (CSRP). The CSRP aims to create a unique, interdisciplinary community and platform for driving practice-based research on suicide prevention, bringing together leading experts, emerging scholars and trainees, and key stakeholders to develop and implement novel approaches to suicide prevention. The first specific aim of the AC will be to establish and provide the essential infrastructure and governance to coordinate activities of the Methods Core (MC) and Center research projects. The AC will be led by MPIs Jordan Smoller and Matthew Nock, who will also annually alternate chairing the Center Steering Committee. Key Center activities will be driven by additional committees: Training, Pilot Grant Program, Disseminations/Communications and Publications (each of which will include Stakeholder representatives. The work of the AC will be guided by input from an External Advisory Board of leading experts and a Stakeholder Panel reflecting the diverse perspectives of individuals with lived experience, healthcare executives, public sector representatives, and community partners who will partner with the Center on identifying and addressing unmet needs and shaping of ongoing research projects. The AC also will interface with the Mass General Brigham (MGB) Systems Behavioral Mental Health Committee to ensure implementation of a learning health system for suicide prevention across the MGB system. AC co-investigators include senior leaders in psychiatric research, suicide prevention, implementation science and bioethics and regulatory issuesdrawn from the MGB healthcare system, Harvard University Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Harvard Medical School, and the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Second, the AC will establish and implement programs to support novel pilot research and an expansion of the workforce devoted to practice-based suicide research. This will include a Pilot Grant Program to evaluate and fund promising new directions in suicide research as well as a Collaborating Scholars Program to engage emerging and advanced career investigators in multidisciplinary research relevant to suicide prevention, with a focus on recruiting individuals from groups traditionally underrepresented in medicine. Third, the AC will develop tools and platforms to disseminate evidence-based suicide prevention research and promote outreach to relevant community partners. This will include the development of the CSRP website, a biannual newsletter, a monthly all-hands CSRP meeting, and monthly CSRP-sponsored speakers’ series. We also will organize an annual conference toprovide a national forum for highlighting emerging research related to suicide prevention. Fourth, in conjunction with the MC and guidance from the CSRP Program Evaluation and Planning Committee, we will establish and implement a program evaluation plan to allow iterative refinement of the Center's ongoing activities and inform plans for future growth of the CSRP and collaborative research.