CTSA K12 Program at the University of Kentucky - PROJECT SUMMARY The goal of the University of Kentucky Mentored Career Development Program (K12) is to inspire careers dedicated to interdisciplinary translational science and to produce leaders who are optimally prepared to guide and participate in ground-breaking research teams. Our program, established in 2011, is an integral component of the Kentucky Center for Clinical & Translational Science (CCTS) to train domain experts who are optimally prepared to produce impactful, rigorous, and efficient transformative research. Our objectives are to drive a continuum of education, mentored training, and career-development services for early-career faculty scholars that will expedite their progression to independent translational science (TS) careers. Thirty-two scholars have completed training (24 with KL2 funds, 8 with institutional support), with 6 currently participating. Of those who have completed the program, all have successfully competed for extramural funding, 30 remain active in TS, 30 have transitioned to PI status on independent K-equivalent (11 scholars) or R-equivalent (19 scholars) awards, and 10 have leadership roles in academia and industry (vice-president, associate dean for research, department chair, research center director, program leads). With continuous growth of research at the University of Kentucky (UK), we are proposing an increase to eight training slots (four supported by the award and four institutionally). Internally funded scholars participate fully in all program activities, and all receive support for three years, contingent on successful annual progress. To provide a longer career development “runway” for those very early in their career, institutionally funded scholars are eligible to transition to K12 support. The program leverages UK and CCTS resources, including an extensive health-care system committed to supporting research, experienced program leadership, strong pools of talented early-career scholars and mentors, ample pilot funding opportunities, expansive community engagement, collaborative training among regional CTSA hubs, state-of-the-art computing capacity, a robust and vigorous culture of team science, broad guidance and consultation services, and experienced tracking and evaluation. Training activities within the CCTS include executing a rigorous research project with TS components; comprehensive exposure to the fundamentals of TS; tailored experiential learning opportunities that promote deep-level training in one or more TS competency area; and career development skills including grant and manuscript preparation, peer mentoring, scientific communication, team science, and dissemination and implementation. Our K12 program, partnered with the CCTS, will promote scientific and operational innovations in clinical, community, and public health research settings; build partnerships to accelerate high impact research; and enhance TS training so that scholars examine complexity, embrace team science, and shake up assumptions about how to discover, disseminate, and implement change that measurably advances the health of our state and beyond.
