Assessing the translational capacity of five CTSA institutions

Abstract

This paper presents collaboration trends for five Clinical and Translational Science Awardee (CTSA) institution to demonstrate the need for new evaluation metrics. Translational science, a methodology that bridges gaps between fundamental and applied science, has gained attention from both the medical research community and government funding agencies. To facilitate interdisciplinary research it is important to understand what aspects of the process act as a bottleneck and limit its effectiveness. Cultural norms within the scientific community make communication between disciplines difficult [1]. CTSAs are meant to help ease burdens and foster an environment where clinicians and basic scientists work together [2]. In 2013, NCATS director, Dr. Chris Austin, said the CTSAs operated "without particular encouragement or direction from the NIH, and this in a disjointed and uncoordinated fashion" [3]. Our intention is to highlight areas of concern and to demonstrate the need and potential for bibliometric translational indicators to help alleviate some of the difficulties with CTSA evaluation by determining the importance of basic scientists in research networks, discussing patterns of co-authorship by institution, and presenting two translational indicators, which can help institutions and funding agencies compare CTSA collaborative patterns.