According to the Bylaws of the American Association of Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the Research and Graduate Affairs Committee (RGAC) shall provide assistance to the Association in developing its research, graduate education, and scholarship agenda. This assistance may include facilitating colleges and schools in formulating and advancing legislative and regulatory initiatives, and nurturing collaborative activities with organizations sharing an interest in issues related to the pharmaceutical sciences

Blouin, Robert

Brixner, Diana

Crismon, Lynn

Cutler, Stephen

Ho, Rodney

Jusko, William

Lau (Convener), Yuen-Sum (Vincent)

Nahata, Milap

Sorkness, Christine

Torchilin, Vladimir P.

Wu-Pong, Susanna

American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education

PubMed

Carolina Digital Repository

AACP REPORTSReport of the 2011-2012 AACP Special Advisory Committee onResearch and Graduate EducationYuen-Sum (Vincent) Lau (Convener),a Robert Blouin,b Diana Brixner,c Lynn Crismon,d Stephen Cutler,eRodney Ho,f William Jusko,g Milap Nahata,h Christine Sorkness,i Vladimir P. Torchilin,j SusannaWu-PongkaAmerican Association of Colleges of PharmacybUniversity of North Carolina at Chapel HillcUniversity of UtahdUniversity of Texas at AustineUniversity of MississippifUniversity of WashingtongSUNY at BuffalohThe Ohio State UniversityiUniversity of Wisconsin at MadisonjNortheastern UniversitykVirginia Commonwealth UniversityINTRODUCTIONAccording to theBylaws of theAmericanAssociationof Colleges of Pharmacy (AACP), the Research and Grad-uate Affairs Committee (RGAC) shall provide assistanceto the Association in developing its research, graduate ed-ucation, and scholarship agenda. This assistance may in-clude facilitating colleges and schools in formulating andadvancing legislative and regulatory initiatives, and nur-turing collaborative activities with organizations sharingan interest in issues related to the pharmaceutical sciences.Following the retirement of Dr. Kenneth Miller, for-merly Senior Vice President at AACP in June 2010,AACP made a strategic decision approved by the Boardof Directors to hire a Vice President of Research andGraduate Education serving as a Chief Science Officer(CSO), who deeply understands contemporary researchand anticipated scientific progress that will benefit AACPand its members. AACP seeks to deepen its relationshipswith all public and private funding agencies supportingthe spectrum of the pharmaceutical sciences and the CSOwill have greater capacity for the primary areas of respon-sibility in research and scientific affairs.Yuen-Sum(Vincent)Lau, Ph.D., previously the John & Rebecca Moores Pro-fessor and Chair of Pharmacological and PharmaceuticalSciences Department at University of Houston College ofPharmacy, assumed this new role in July, 2011.During the first transitional year, the new CSO wasresponsible to evaluate the existing AACP programs andmake necessary improvements. In addition, PresidentBrian Crabtree had charged AACP to create a Special Ad-visory Committee on Research and Graduate Educationto advise and provide assistance to the new CSO instrengthening research, graduate education, and scholar-ship for the academy. The recommended strategic direc-tions included building relationships and collaborationwith scientific organizations and funding agencies, lead-ing scientists in and out of pharmacy education, creatingan Academic Research Fellows Program, and strengthen-ing and supporting graduate education.The Special Advisory Committee on Research andGraduate Educationmet onDec. 13-14, 2011 inAlexandriaVirginia, during which the 2010-11 Research and GraduateAffairs Committee Report1 and the currentAACPStrategicPlan Critical Issue 5 on “Research and Scholarship” wereexamined and discussed. Throughout the year, the CSOcontacted the committee members via electronic commu-nication. The Committee met again through a conferencecall on June 26, 2012 to review the progress and discussfuture agenda. This report summarizes the Committee’sdiscussion and AACP’s execution on tasks related to re-search and graduate affairs within the year.NEW INVESTIGATOR AWARD PROGRAMAACP has annually administered the New Investi-gators Program for Pharmacy Faculty since 1986 with thefinancial support of the American Foundation for Phar-maceutical Education. This source of financial supportceased after 2008. Because this program is so vital topharmacy faculty in their early stage especially allowingthem to develop novel and independent research ideas andprojects, and such resources can assist them to generatecritical preliminary data so they can be competitive inAmerican Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2012; 76 (8) Article S14.1applying for other extramural research support, AACPand the Board of Directors approved to resume this pro-gram in 2010 entirely supported by the AACP funds. In2011, the Board further approved to increase the numberof awards from 15 to 18 and it is now named as the AACPNew Investigator Award (NIA).In 2011, the application and review process had beenrevised. Briefly, the CSO offered a webinar to potentialapplicants on how to prepare and submit an NIA researchproposal. The applicantswere urged to identify amentor forreviewing and providing guidance to their research project.The CSO also conducted several conference calls with theAACP academic section leaders to discuss about how toform application review panels and how to score applica-tions based on scientific merit. At the end, all Section Past-Chairs were involved in the decision of selecting awardeesaccording to the significance, quality, innovation, and ap-proach of the proposals, and successful potential of theapplicants. The aggregated information on the 2011 NIAis shown inTable 1.As a post-awardmeasure, theCSOwillbegin to track their research progress by requiring awardeesto submit a 6-month progress report and an end-of-yearfinancial and scientific report. The awardees will also beprovided a travel stipend and required to present their find-ings at the next annual meeting after the completion of thefunded research projects. To better prepare the future newinvestigators, the CSO offered a pre-session on “ResearchProposal Preparation Workshop for New Faulty Investiga-tors” at the 2012 AACP Annual Meeting in Kissimmee,FL., which covered research application strategies fora wide range of pharmacy-related areas.FACULTY MENTORING/COLLABORATIVEPROGRAMS FOR RESEARCH ANDSCHOLARSHIPFaculty mentoring has been a continuous topic ofdiscussion within the academy in past and present years.Programming for faculty leadership and mentorship is anAACP Strategic Plan Goal (Critical Issue 1 on improvingfaculty recruitment, retention and productivity). Facultymentoring is also recognized as a top priority accordingto the recent membership needs analysis. Following theAACP Leadership Retreat in Chicago in March 2012,Chair-elects of Council of Deans, Council of Faculty,and Council of Sections gathered and agreed to createa joint taskforce to conduct an in-depth investigationand provide recommendations on how to enhance phar-macy faculty mentoring. The AACP staff liaisons for thethree Councils met and developed a framework for theTri-Council Chair-elects to consider before developingthe charges for the taskforce. The outlined frameworkfor a comprehensive and effective Pharmacy FacultyMentoring Plan was not intended to create a desirablefit-for-all mentoring program, instead it was designed toexamine and bring forth a multidisciplinary mentoringstructurewith existing resources. The taskforcewas askedto determine what considers a good and effective mentor-mentee relationship, what should be the desirable quali-fications of a mentor, what are the responsibilities ofmentors and mentees, what are the resources that are al-ready available or should be developed for fulfilling theneeds of mentees, and what mentoring pieces should beoffered by the university, professional organization, orcan be delivered by the modern technology. More impor-tantly, the mentoring plan should be applicable to facultyof all disciplines and at all ranks, not just the new faculty.It is expected that this taskforce work will be completedby summer 2013.ANNUAL PHARMACY FACULTYRESEARCH GRANT DATA REPORTSince 1995, AACP has annually collected and pub-lished an aggregated report on Pharmacy Faculty Re-search Grant Data (PFRGD) for each college or schoolTable 1. 2011-2012 AACP New Investigator Award (NIA) Application StatisticsSectionsLetter ofIntent ReceivedDisqualified Letterof IntentFinal ApplicationReceived Number FundedaBiological Sciences 52 4 43 4Chemistry 19 1 15 3Continuing Professional Education 1 0 1 0Experiential Education 1 0 0 0Libraries/Educational Resources 2 1 0 0Pharmaceutics 36 0 29 3Pharmacy Practice 40 0 20 4Social and Administrative Sciences 29 1 22 4Totalb 180 7 130 18a One ranked application withdrew due to subsequent receipt of another foundation grant.b Grant total amount awarded: $172,146 (individual awards range from $7,170-$10,000).American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2012; 76 (8) Article S14.2of pharmacy. The published PFRGD reports in earlieryears contained primarily the NIH R01 Principal Investi-gator (PI) grants. Since 2002, reporting on other types offederal and non-federal awards was expanded. However,besides the NIH grants, the verification of other types ofgrants submitted by colleges and schools had been quitechallenging. Up till 2010, a total of 11 layouts had beengenerated each year showing different ways that the grantdata were presented in rank order.This year, as part of AACP’s continual efforts toenhance member service and improve processes, we ex-tensively reexamined the purpose,methodology, validity,interpretation and use of faculty research grant data. Asa result of that study,we decided to change the data report-ing process this year. We implemented a modified systemfor reporting extramural faculty PI-initiated, peer-reviewedresearch grants that have specific research aims and a scopeof work including grants from non-federal agencies.Through our lengthy verification process, we focusedon data accuracy. The data collection and validation pro-cess is fully described in the report.Guiding our work was our belief that AACP shouldrefrain from officially ranking colleges/schools usinga single parameter based on the National Institutes ofHealth (NIH) funding level and should refrain from pro-viding different layouts for colleges and schools to makepreferential data interpretations. Instead, we providedvalidated and accurate data for colleges/schools to useas each desires. In the 2011 report, to maintain full trans-parency, the process and methodology for generating thisreport were fully disclosed. The report contained not onlyNIH grants, but also other federal, non-federal, and col-laborative research grants and subcontracts. The PFRGDwill be available online to provide more interactive func-tionalities allowing colleges/schools to generate theirown reports using their selected parameters for bench-marking purpose.AACP is pleased to announce, in the 2011 our col-leges and schools collectively received $288.4 millionNIH PI grants and $415.2 million total research grants(including the NIH, other federal, non-federal, and col-laborative research subcontracts). The Committee be-lieved that NIH grants are most useful data to mostschools that should be kept separate from other federalgrants. Total extramural funding is also important to in-dicate how much research is conducted at colleges andschools. However, some of the indicators/denominators(e.g. number of FTE, Ph.D., etc.) used in the past years arequite variable from school to school and are not meaning-ful. On the other hand, the number of funded PI faculty,who are responsible for generating the grants would beuseful and is now added.RESEARCH ADVOCACY AND OUTREACHThe AACP Strategic Critical Issue 5 calls for theCSO to reach out to colleges/schools for the purpose oflearning about organizational, financial and operationalissues affecting research and graduate education at ourmember institutions, listening to members and nonmem-bers to discern their needs for programs and services, andto have opportunities to share up-to-date informationabout AACP with faculty and administrators.Since joining AACP, the CSO had visited 15 col-leges and schools, which included University of Texasin Austin (July 6, 2011), University of Washington inSeattle (September 8), University of British Columbiain Vancouver (September 9), University of Kentucky(October 13-14), University of Minnesota (October 27-28), Duquesne University (November 14), University ofPittsburgh (November 15-16), UC-San Diego (February15-16, 2012), University of Southern California (Febru-ary 17), University of North Carolina (February 28-29),Northeastern University (March 13-14), MassachusettsColleges of Pharmacy (March 16), Albany College ofPharmacy (April 11-13), and University of Maryland(April 16). The CSO attended the American Associationof Pharmaceutical Scientists meeting (Oct. 24-25, 2011)reaching out to basic pharmaceutical scientists and grad-uate students, who do not routinely attend the AACPannual meeting. The CSO also attended the PharmacyDeans Research Group meeting in Tucson, AZ and metwith a few faculty at the University of Arizona campus(January 13-14, 2012).The AACP Science Office and Advocacy Officehave jointly assembled relevant faculty research expertpanels to examine directions, methodology, and policiessurrounding pharmacy and pharmaceutical research atthe request of funding agencies. For example, a Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) panel wasformed and chaired by Dr. Diana Brixner of University ofUtah College of Pharmacy, which reviewed and providedinsightful comments for the revision of PCORI’s Transla-tionTableFramework.The similar approach for advocatingpharmacy and pharmaceutical research will be continuedby experts in the academy. It was also suggested by theCommittee forAACP to establish relationshipwith fundingagencies and nominate more scientists to serve on councilsand review panels within funding agencies.PROPOSED ACADEMIC RESEARCHFELLOWS PROGRAMFollowing the recommendation of the 2010-11 Re-search and Graduate Affairs Committee1, AACP has con-sidered the design of a new Academic Research FellowsProgram (ARFP) modeled upon the successful AcademicAmerican Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2012; 76 (8) Article S14.3Leadership Fellows Program, which is currently in its 9thyear. The ARFP was envisioned to accelerate the careersof promising pharmaceutical scientists as collaborativeresearch leaders. The structure and feasibility of the pro-posed ARFP were further discussed this year.Previously it was thought that ARFP should bedesigned to advance the research of individual facultyat mid-career level and bring new dimensions to theirresearch and professional development. The CSO andthis Committee recognized that organizing an ARFP forindividuals from diverse backgrounds and disciplineswould be difficult to manage. AACP should not replicatesome programs that offer research proposal writingwork-shops that would require a lot of personalized effort andcost-associated resources to train or retrain a faculty one-on-one from an organization stand-point. The Committeebelieved that mentoring individual faculty in research andscholarship could be best handled at college/school level.However, the academy needs more better-trained men-tors, who understand the whole research enterprise andwho can help to build research teams and programs athome institutions. Therefore, the ARFP should be de-signed to train researchers not only to advance their ownresearch programs, but also for them to mentor their col-leagues at all ranks and disciplines.The ARFP is currently at its development stage aim-ing for an inaugural class in 2013. The main expectedoutcomes of the Fellows Program will include gettingto know and making relationship with major fundingagencies, learning the process for developing and manag-ing a successful research program, achieving effective-ness in research advocacy, establishing a contemporarygraduate program that will offer a multidisciplinary cur-riculum, and identifying training grants and individualfellowships for graduate students. Potential trainers andfacilitators for the Fellows Program will be researchleaders from academia, NIH and other federal agencies,foundations and associations, and industrial entities.GRADUATE PROGRAMS AND STUDENTRECRUITMENTThe Committee recognized that AACP needs to ex-amine and develop products for better marketing phar-macy and pharmaceutical graduate degree programs andfor helping schools to recruit quality graduate students,especially among the US graduates. Colleges and schoolsthat offer graduate degrees should make sure that theirprograms are rigorous and their graduates are well trainedand prepared for the future biomedical workforce. Weshould also encourage more research scientists to con-sider academic pharmacy jobs and assist them to becomeexcellent and competitive research investigators. AACPhad now linked its Web site listing graduate degree pro-grams in North America to individual school’s Web pagethat will allow potential applicants easy access to the de-gree programs offered by colleges and schools of phar-macy. AACP staff is also exploring the possibility oflisting the graduate degree programs within the web-based PharmCas portal, which currently only containscollege/school pages for the centralized PharmD degreeapplication and admission. The CSO has worked with theAmerican Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists andthe AACP Graduate Education SIG on how to enhancegraduate education and programs, to identify more re-sources for supporting graduate students, dual-degree stu-dents, and to stimulate their interest in research. Furtherinvestigation and discussion on developing and imple-menting a good business model for graduate and post-graduate programs concerning the quality of teaching/research assistants, residents, postdoctoral fellows, andfaculty is also warranted.REFERENCES1. Brueggemeier RW, Clark AM, Das SK, et al. The path forward:the future of graduate education in the pharmaceutical sciences: thereport of the 2010-2011 research and graduate affairs committee. AmJ Pharm Educ. 2011;75(10).American Journal of Pharmaceutical Education 2012; 76 (8) Article S14.4

Report of the 2011-2012 AACP Special Advisory Committee on Research and Graduate Education

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