Departmental Research Committee

The committee’s charge is to foster and support departmental research by providing research structure, guidance, advice, peer-review and mentoring. It maintains, facilitates and expands relationships with basic science mentors and research interest groups, reviews existing research projects in the department, and explores potential funding mechanisms and resources.

It also reviews the existing basic and clinical research equipment and UMMC core facilities and collaborations available for our use, and matches them with already existing projects, suggesting intradepartmental research funding mechanisms: “mini-grants” funded by the department for initial resident projects. All research spending should be project- and accountability-based and reviewed by the research committee: if a project is reviewed, modified according to review, accepted, funded, allocated research time, and provided mentoring and assistance, it should result in a publication at some level.

The committee reviews the list of faculty research mentors and organizes research education/update workshops for mentors and mentees in current “hot topics” (NIH roadmap, RCR, etc), ensuring that institutional research compliance resources are available for departmental trainees. It provides peer review panels or reviewers (either internal or ad hoc expert recruited) for in-house review of papers, grants, and protocols and gives supportive review and help to improve probability of projects being submitted for outside publishing and funding.

Monthly requirements

• Meet the first week of each month.
• Review current projects/anticipated presentations.
• Maintain a list of active and pending projects.
• Review funding/grant opportunities/initiatives.
• Review opportunities for interdepartmental liaison/projects.
• Review progress of any resident rotating on research month or doing CA-3 research time. That resident will present his/her progress at the monthly meeting.
• Set/publish agenda for the multiresearch conference to be held the fourth Thursday of each month.
• Provide a copy of minutes to the chairman for his review.