Overall Project Summary The Great Plains is a vast, rural region with pockets of urban development. Geographic and social isolation— combined with lack of access to primary and specialized care in both rural and underserved urban areas— characterize some of our most vulnerable populations. The GP IDeA-CTR network was established in 2016 to address these pressing needs. Headquartered at UNMC with partner institutions across Nebraska and the Dakotas, we built a robust, networked research infrastructure to develop and guide our CTR investigators, promote resource sharing, and advance collaborations among CTR investigators and community members. We leveraged relationships with national CTRs, CTSAs, and other national organizations to share best practices and strategies for developing CTR. These accomplishments advanced a network culture of team science and strengthened our ability to compete successfully for research awards and capacity to translate basic and clinical research to advance community health needs. In response to PAR-20-175, this competitive renewal application consolidates our GP IDeA-CTR gains and advances the PAR’s objectives to further develop key infrastructure and human resources to meet CTR needs and health challenges across our network by meeting 4 specific aims: 1) Further develop the infrastructure, services, resources, and community relationships needed to expand funded CTR; 2) Expand professional development activities in concert with the Pilot Projects Program (PPP) to cultivate a cadre of successful CTR investigators; 3) Strengthen collaborative partnerships across Nebraska and regional Great Plains IDeA states (the Dakotas and Kansas); and 4) Create an environment that fosters innovative multidisciplinary, multisite, and cross-entity (e.g., public-private) partnerships, IDeA (national CTR, COBRE, INBRE, ISPCTN, SEPA) and other national (e.g., CTSAs) collaborations. We do so working together under strong leadership, with collaboration, support, and advice from NIGMS, Internal and External Advisory Committees of strong CTR experts, and a Community Advisory Board. The GP-IDeA CTR enhances partnerships across all Nebraska University System Institutions (UNMC, UNO, UNL, and UNK) and Boys Town National Research Hospital, expands our institutional partner network to include Creighton University, Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, and the Omaha VA. We continue development of a community-anchored Practice-Based Research Network. We forge a new relationship with the DaCCoTA CTR to strengthen CTR connections with Dakota institutions. We continue to advance services and sustainable resources through our Cores (Administrative, Professional Development, Biostatistics, Community Engagement, Biomedical Informatics, Tracking & Evaluation) and PPP, informed by our experience and lessons learned from the first funding cycle. We sharpen our silo-spanning thematic focus on team science and continue to advance innovation and entrepreneurship to catalyze movement across the CTR spectrum and build capacity to bring community-relevant CTR ideas to the marketplace.

2020 Overall Narrative The purpose of the Great Plains (GP) IDeA-CTR is to further develop key infrastructure and human resources to meet clinical and translational research (CTR) needs and health challenges across our network. To do so, the GP-IDeA CTR enhances existing partnerships across all Nebraska University system institutions (UNMC, UNO, UNL, and UNK) and Boys Town National Research Hospital, expands our network to include Creighton University, Children’s Hospital and Medical Center, and the Omaha Veterans Administration Medical Center; continues development of a community-anchored Practice-Based Research Network; and forges a new relationship with the DaCCoTA CTR to strengthen CTR connections with Dakota institutions. We continue to advance services and sustainable resources through our Cores (Administrative, Professional Development, Biostatistics, Community Engagement, Biomedical Informatics, Tracking and Evaluation, and Pilot Projects Program)––informed by challenges addressed and lessons learned from the first funding cycle; sharpen our silo-spanning thematic focus on team science plus community engagement to advance CTR teams and partnerships; and continue to emphasize innovation and entrepreneurship to catalyze movement across the CTR spectrum––leveraging engineering, medicine, and technology transfer expertise across the network to build capacity to bring community-relevant ideas to the marketplace.