Community-academic grants administration translation (CAGAT): Enhancing the capacities of community-academic partnerships in grants management

With the rise in community-academic health research partnerships at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (UNC), there was growing recognition among academic researchers, community partners, and academic business offices that limited guidance exists for the administrative and fiscal aspects of managing partnered research grants.  The Community-Academic Grants Administration Translation (CAGAT) workgroup was formed to increase community and academic partners’ capacity to effectively manage their grants while fulfilling federal and university requirements and increasing community trust and engagement.  We describe the collaborative effort that led to the creation of two guidebooks, one for community partners, one for academic researchers, and related trainings.

The workgroup, consisting of community experts, North Carolina Translational and Clinical Sciences Institute (TraCS) Community Advisory Board (CAB) members and research staff, and UNC Office of Sponsored Research leadership met collectively and in ad-hoc groups from August 2012 to June 2014.  They decided to develop guidebooks to assist partnerships with pre- and post-award grant processes and university sub-contractual requirements.  TraCS faculty, staff, and CAB members (n=13) then collaborated weekly via conference calls to co-write the guidebooks.  Two focus groups, one with community and one with academic partners, were convened to obtain feedback on the manuals as well as training and dissemination strategies.  Feedback was summarized, analyzed, and used for revisions.  Trainings on and off campus to disseminate the guidebooks are planned.  CAGAT workshops, co-presented by faculty and community partners to orient researchers to community-academic research partnerships are now included in UNC’s new investigator training series.