Institutional Career Development Core

The University of Wisconsin (UW) Institute for Clinical and Translational Research (ICTR) KL2 Program, launched in 2007, has recruited and trained 82 scholars varied in their discipline, area of study, and position along the translational spectrum. We appoint three scholars per year for four years using a combination of internal and external funds. Graduated scholars remain committed to research (90%) in academics or industry, have been promoted or are eligible for promotion (87%), have successfully competed for funding as a principal investigator/multiple principal investigator ($225 million) and as a co-investigator ($288 million), and have published prolifically as first/senior author (513) and as a co-author (1,456). To accelerate these and other successes, ICTR has completed an institute-wide strategic plan (Innovation Scorecard) that serves as a roadmap to use continuous improvement to address ongoing challenges in conducting efficient, rigorous, and engaged CTR at our Hub—with specific attention to CTR capacity building. In concert with these continuous program improvement efforts, we engaged a comprehensive KL2 needs assessment, which recognized key challenges to early-career scientists, including: 1) maintaining work-life integration, 2) transitioning to independence, 3) promoting broadly representative research teams and study participants, 4) designing research for dissemination, and 5) disseminating and implementing research to improve health outcomes. In the next grant period, we propose to refine our KL2 Program to address these challenges by achieving the following Specific Aims: 1) Enhance scholar’s vitality by building their capacity to adjust to life and career stressors, 2) Foster scholars’ engagement of community members in research conduct and dissemination, 3) Establish longitudinal programming to help scholars incorporate dissemination and implementation concepts into their research programs, and 4) Disseminate the KL2 Program’s mentorship and coaching innovations. We have developed a comprehensive plan to increase the recruitment and retention of broadly representative scholars.. We have also designed a rigorous program evaluation plan to assess influence at all levels of the translational research ecosystem. Program success will be measured at each level: 1) individual: secure grants and publish work in high-impact journals; 2) proximal: develop and maintain relationships with mentors, mentees, and research teams; 3) institutional and inter-institutional: form inter-disciplinary scientific teams and transform clinical care and UW culture; and 4) societal: revolutionize clinical guidelines and improve health for all.