Transitioning from Individual Projects to Center Grants Department of Health Care Management Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, Leonard

Transitioning from Individual Projects to Center Grants

Department of Health Department of Health Care ManagementCare Management

Center for Health Center for Health Incentives and Incentives and Behavioral Economics, Behavioral Economics, Leonard Davis Institute Leonard Davis Institute

CHERP, Philadelphia CHERP, Philadelphia VA Medical CenterVA Medical Center

University of Pennsylvania University of Pennsylvania School of MedicineSchool of Medicine

Perelman School of Medicine Symposium

Kevin Volpp, MD, PhDJune 22, 2012

Kevin Volpp, MD, PhD – not for reproduction without permission

22

Imagine if. . .

You have been a well-funded and successful investigator

You are 6-7 years + into your academic career

You have gotten a bunch of R01s and built a solid record of accomplishment

You feel that you need an overarching platform for your work ‘to take it to the next level’


33

Reasons to go for it

• Center grants confer additional external recognition

• Branding can help bring more opportunities your way and help with dissemination

• Provide administrative support that can provide ‘glue’ for work between investigators

• Helps you think more deeply about what you want to accomplish

• Help confer the sense to NIH and others that you lead one of the best groups in your field


44

Reasons not to do it

• It is an enormous amount of work to put together a competitive Center grant application

• Have to think carefully about whether it helps you achieve your goals more efficiently than alternatives

• Some external branding can be done without a Center grant; key issue is how influential your science is

• Building a Center involves enormous investments of time; this may in many cases reduce your academic productivity


55

Talk Outline

• P01 application (unsuccessful)

• P30 Application (successful)

•A few words on funding from corporations


66

P01 Components

• Cores– Admin Core – “the glue that makes sum larger than the parts”

– Data/Methods Core – Choice

• Projects– Typically between 3-5– Lowest scoring can potentially be dropped– Need a minimum of 4

•Each part gets scored and then overall score is given


77

P01 Application Planning and Orchestrating

• Form an investigative team and define roles

• Solicit external and institutional support

• Create a checklist

• Set internal deadlines and stick to them


88

Many pieces establish team leads

Project 2 PI

Project 3 PI

Project 4 PI

Project 1 PI

Biostatistics Core PI

Administrative Core PI

Process Evaluation Core PI

Advisory Board

DSMB


99

Many pieces – establish team leads

Administrative CoreKevin Volpp, M.D., Ph.D., Director

George Loewenstein, Ph.D., Associate Director

Figure 1. Program Project Grant Organizational Structure

Steering CommitteeP01 PI and Co-PI

Project PIsCore PIs

Associate DirectorsAdmin Manager

National Advisory Committee

Project 1PI: Kevin

Volpp, M.D., Ph.D.

Project 2PI: Jalpa

Doshi, Ph.D.

Project 3PI: Jennifer

Elston Lafata, Ph.D.

Project 4PI: George

Loewenstein, Ph.D.

LDI CHI P01 CoresBiostatistics and Data Management (BDM) (Troxel)

Process Evaluation and Cost Effectiveness (PE-CEA) (Shea and Glick)


1010

Describe fit within University and enlist support from relevant organizational leadership

Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) Executive Director Asch

School of Medicine

Nursing School

Figure 1: Relationship of LDI CHI to UPenn’s Administrative Structure

Central University Administration (Trustees, President, Provost)

Wharton School

Arts and Sciences (SAS)

Center for Health Incentives, LDI (LDI CHI) Director, Volpp

NIA P30 on Demography of

Aging Soldo, Director

Institute on Aging,

Trojanowski, Director

Figure 1. Related entities


1111

Leverage all available resources

• External letters of support – well-placed EAB and DSMB

• Internal letters of support

• Make friends with the super-helpful people in the PSOM Office of Research Program Development

– Liz Bien x8-2726, http://www.med.upenn.edu/rpd/index.html


1212

Putting the application together

• Oversight of a P01 submission is like oversight of an active program project grant

–Solicit input from and delegate tasks to team members–Stay on schedule–Mediate differences of opinion–Review progress regularly–Avoid overlap in scope among pieces–Build rapport and dialogue with NIH program staff about the proposal: you need them to buy in to what you are trying to do


1313

Create a submission checklist and set internal deadlines


1414

Drafting the pieces – lots of details. . .

TABLE III

PERCENT USE OF EACH CORE BY EACH PROJECT IN THE FIRST YEAR

PROJECT 1 PROJECT 2 PROJECT 3 PROJECT 4

Core A: Administrative 25% 30% 25% 20%

Core B: Biostatistics and Data Management 30% 30% 20% 20%

Core C: Process Evaluation and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis 27% 27% 27% 19%


1515

More than just details. . .

•Whole must be bigger than proverbial sum of parts

• Omit redundancies and discrepancies among cores and projects

•Get signed subcontract budgets in time to modify overall grant budget, if necessary

•Letters of support

•Understand the sheer volume of documents (CHIBE’s P01 was 796 pages long with a 6 page table of contents)


1616

Assembling the documents

• This will take an entire day or two, no matter how much support you have

• Allow time to review and re-review everything

• Rally help early –Administrative staff–Business office staff–Office of Research Program Development


1717

Key lessons

• Carefully match your interests and likely availability of funding (NIA ended up only funding P01s with scores in 1.0-1.2 range in 2009)

• If your project isn’t funded, don’t give up!

• Individual projects can be submitted as R01s

• Cores can be modified for use in other proposals


1818

What is a Roybal Center?

• NIH P30 center grant

• Authorized by Congress in 1993

• Named for former House Select Committee on Aging Chair Edward R. Roybal (U.S. House 1963-1993)

• Purpose: Build a research infrastructure to enhance basic research and accelerate development of new ideas; foster academic, public, private collaborations

• Goal: Translation of research into applications that can be moved quickly into practice to improve the health and well being of older adults


1919

P30 application

• Roybal P30 Centers – 5 year grants focused on administrative support and pilot program support

• • Existing Centers had to apply for renewal at 2009

• In 2008, NIA let it be known that they were looking to bring in at least 1-2 new Centers

• In 2009, we applied for and became one of 13 Roybal Centers nationally


2020

13 Roybal Centers nationwide1. Roybal Center for Translational Research on Aging, Harvard (Christakis) (social

networks)

2. Behavior Change in Health and Saving, NBER (Laibson)

3. Northwest Roybal Center, University of Washington (Teri) (cognitive impairment)

4. PENN CMU Roybal Center on Behavioral Economics and Health (Volpp and Loewenstein)

5. Roybal Center for Translational Research on Aging and Mobility, UAB (Ball) (mobility in older adults)

6. Center for Translational Research on Chronic Disease Self-Management, Indiana University-Purdue University at Indianapolis (Callahan)

7. Roybal Center on Advancing Decision Making in Aging, Stanford (Garber)

8. Roybal Center for Health Policy Simulation, USC-RAND Corporation. ( Goldman)

9. Midwest Roybal Center for Health Promotion and Translation, UIC (Hughes)

10. Princeton Center for Research on Experience and Well-being (Krueger and Deaton)

11. Roybal Center for Financial Decision Making, RAND Corporation (Kapetyn)

12. Oregon Roybal Center, OHSU (Kaye) (Mobility and cognitive function)

13. Cornell-Columbia Institute for Translational Research on Aging, Cornell and Columbia (Reid) (pain management)


2121

You have to convince NIH that Center plan makes sense

• Big picture here is very important–How does the new center fit into your research group’s organizational structure?

–How does the new center fit into Penn’s organizational structure?

•Can it leverage existing relationships and resources at Penn?–Show basic ingredients for successful Center exist (abundance of talented faculty)

–Demonstrate ways this complements existing activities–Reasons why UPENN is the best place in US for this


2222

Describe where it fits within UPENN and obtain support from leaders of related entitites

Leonard Davis Institute (LDI) Executive Director Asch

School of Medicine

Nursing School

Figure 1: Relationship of LDI CHI to UPenn’s Administrative Structure

Central University Administration (Trustees, President, Provost)

Wharton School

Arts and Sciences (SAS)

Center for Health Incentives, LDI (LDI CHI) Director, Volpp

NIA P30 on Demography of

Aging Soldo, Director

Institute on Aging,

Trojanowski, Director

Figure 1. Related entities


2323

Planning organizational structure of Penn-CMU Roybal Center on Behavioral Economics and Health

CHIBE

Administrative CoreAdministrative support

RetreatsDissemination

Training

Pilot CorePilot Projects

Co-InvestigatorsCMU FacultyPenn Faculty

Trainees

Principal InvestigatorKevin Volpp, M.D.,

Ph.D.

Co-Principal InvestigatorGeorge Loewenstein,

Ph.D.


2424

Planning – create a submission checklist and set internal deadlines


2525

P30 – once it is funded

• Start thinking about renewal!

• What constitutes success

• Focus on elements that will make your Center unambiguously successful

• Keep records of new grants, papers, press, evidence of translation of research that can be used at time of next renewal to make that process simpler


2626

Corporate Research Portfolio

• Diversification of funding useful

• Opportunity to raise more flexible funding

• Need to find a match between your interests and corporate interests

• Non-negotiable: full access to data and full rights to publish

• Most everything else is negotiable


2727


• Biggest advantage: allows you to do things you otherwise couldn’t do

– Humana simplicity plan

– Discovery trial of physical activity in 11,000 people

– Aramark food pricing studies

– Weight Watchers Cost sharing trial

– CVS Caremark medication adherence studies


2828


• Pros:–Leverage corporate infrastructure to recruit participants, collect data

– If your research is successful, good chance they will translate it into practice!

– Don’t need to limit price to costs; more flexibility in budgets– Can include administrative costs in your budget

• Cons:– Companies often have shorter time horizons – In our experience they are generally more interested in smaller studies and not definitive longer term studies


2929

Summary

• Center grants can help you ‘take your research to the next level’

• Think carefully about whether this is actually a logical evolution of your career; many people may be happier running a smaller research group

• If you are going to do this, need to put a lot into the applications; need to convince them that UPENN and your group is the group to fund

• Consider alternatives such as corporate sponsorship as a complementary way of supporting and building your program


3030

Questions?

Email: [email protected]

Research: chibe.upenn.edu

Documents

Transitioning from Individual Projects to Center Grants Department of Health Care Management Center for Health Incentives and Behavioral Economics, Leonard