Recommendations

We asked respondents to identify problems they had in applying for, conducting, or reporting to the CBCRP about the research funded with the CRC Awards. We also asked them to make suggestions about what the CBCRP could do to help solve the problems they identified. The following describes the problems identified, suggested solutions, and recommendations to the CBCRP.

1. Grant awards (both Pilot and Full) should be larger.

In general, those interviewed felt that it costs more to work in collaboration with the community. More people have to be paid, study development takes longer, and there are often multiple program or administrative sites. Conducting research at community-based sites that lack the technology of university labs may also increase costs and compromise research quality if the funding is inadequate, as evidenced from this quote.

“At the University, when they tape groups they have a room that has several cameras shooting from several angles already set up in the room. We had to hire a camera person to come in. We ended up having to have a U shape rather then a circle so the video person could move around. It changed the dynamics.”

—Community Collaborator

Several researchers noted that in certain areas (the Bay Area, the Los Angeles area) there are so many breast cancer studies going on that participant recruitment was more difficult and took longer. Also, one researcher mentioned that she felt the grant amounts are below those made by comparable funders.

Community organizations were forced to deal with unintended financial consequences of their participation in the research project. Administrative costs, such as computers and staff time, were often not adequately considered or reimbursed(see point 7 below). Research projects that were based on service programs (retreats, support groups, workbooks) create a desire by clients for the service that often extends beyond the research funding period. Community organizations cannot always meet this need after the research funding has ended.

2. The CBCRP should increase support for the development of partnerships.

Several respondents suggested that community groups need more support in the beginning of the process. One idea was preliminary funding to help build trust between potential community and traditional research collaborators. Some respondents were confused about the Pilot Awards. They felt the wording of the application implied that they could apply for funding to begin developing a relationship, not that they had to start collecting data right away. Another suggestion was that the CBCRP offer nonprofits smaller planning grants to help them get to the point where they can apply for a Pilot Award. Another suggestion was for the CBCRP to hold interactive training workshops at the community level to help the community look at their questions and to give suggestions about what is researchable.

“The trainings I went to for CBCRP and the tobacco research project were talking heads assuming a certain level of research knowledge.”

—Community Collaborator.

The limited available funding, the time required to fully work with the community, lack of support from their academic institutions, and lack of familiarity with the CRC awards all limit academic researchers' participation. Some suggestions for things the CBCRP can do to encourage more academic researchers to participate in the CRCs included:

3. The CBCRP needs to get grant awards to recipients in a more timely manner.

If the Pilot Award team is to move smoothly into the application for a full award, pilot data is needed by December. This makes the July 1 start date for the Pilot Award a priority. However, grant awards are announced just one to two months before the project is to begin. Funding often comes after the project's start date, sometimes as late as September. This delay in funding hurts the project as well as the nonprofit organization partner. Several community partners felt it was important to be the fiscal agent, as a means to achieve a more balanced power relationship with the academic researcher. But it is hard for nonprofit organizations to be fiscal agents, because they can not “float” funding for the study until the grant award is received.

“After we were told that we received the pilot grant, the actual receiving the money was a little vague. It was stressful on me because I felt that it was on me to get the money. I remember having a hard time getting an answer on when the money would come in and in what form. I remember stressing out that if the money didn't come I would have to pay for it myself.”

—Community Collaborator

4. The CBCRP should change the application timing.

Even if funds can be delivered in a more timely manner, the timing of progression from the Pilot Award to the Full Award also needs adjustment. Currently, in order to put together a competitive Full Award application, the research team needs pilot data within six months of the Pilot Award start date. If the team decides not to submit an application for the Full Award during their Pilot project, funding will lapse for up to a year between the end of the Pilot project and the potential beginning of the next Full Award period. This would lead to the dismantling of the team, because each partner would have to seek funding from other funding sources for other projects. Academic researchers, in particular, would then be pulled into other projects and not be able to rejoin the team. Suggestions for dealing with this issue included expanding Pilot Awards from the current 12 months to a higher award for 16 months, or adding a third type of award, possibly a research proposal development award, that would be a bridge between the Pilot and Full Awards.

5. The CBCRP should hold more meetings with more attendees.

Several community groups wished they had had more funding to bring more of their community members to the CBCRP's research symposium, held every two years. Some community members also felt that they could have benefited from meetings for all CRC research teams throughout the year. The community participants are at a disadvantage, not knowing as much about the world of research as the academics. While they learned a great deal in completing their studies, they felt more sharing between the teams would have been an improvement. Topics they suggested for these meetings include: contract requirements and reporting, solving methodology problems, and sharing ideas about where to publish. One community collaborator shared confusion about the reporting requirements:

“Much of what I have difficulty with is simply the unfamiliarity with the bureaucracy in the reporting and responding. There is a midyear report that came up that we still don't know what it means!”

—Community Collaborator

6. The CBCRP should take a more active role in supporting and advocating for community participation in research.

The CBCRP is inviting these research collaborations and should know that the community is going to be, in some ways, the more vulnerable party in the power dynamics they develop working with academic researchers. Additionally, the CBCRP needs to educate community groups, and not assume that community groups understand the rules and procedures (even if they are written down somewhere). For example, several community groups had no idea that they could include funding for indirect costs in their budgets. The assumption in the nonprofit community is that only the fiscal agent receives funding for indirect costs. Several organizations could have benefited from receiving funding of indirect costs. But even those community organizations that knew the grant award would pay for indirect costs didn't have the skill to figure out what to charge.

“We found as the project grew that there were costs that we weren't aware of. It would have been helpful if CBCRP could provide some awareness of what to expect on indirect costs. They are funding it but you just need to know what to ask for.”

—Community Collaborator

Others had no idea that the funding could actually be flexible and that they could request no-cost extensions. One community member felt that if CBCRP staff called projects throughout the year, community-based researchers would feel more comfortable calling the staff with questions (see Point 8, below).

One researcher felt that the CRC program is trying to fit the community into a research structure rather then the other way around. It's a conceptual shift. For example, several community groups felt demoralized by the funding rejections they received from the CBCRP reviewers. The harsh style of the criticism might well be understood within the context of the research milieu, but it is not typical for nonprofits. One organization did not re-apply because they felt the harshness of the criticism was the CBCRP's way of telling them they didn't have a chance of getting funding. Another community group had a member who was a researcher, so she was able to interpret the criticism and explain that the harsh language was not a condemnation of the organization. She commented:

“Reviewing the criticism of the first draft was hard. People felt like it was hard to hear what was being said. I was there and was able to let them know that it was how it happened. If I weren't there they would have been really demoralized. CBCRP should know that that type of critique has a different impact on a community. Women with breast cancer have already been hit hard. I believe the criticism could have been more supportive and less harsh.”

—Community Collaborator

7. The CBCRP should improve and increase communication with researchers.

Both community and traditional researchers requested that the CBCRP staff improve and increase communication. Examples of poor communication were late notices for award letters, addresses not being changed after repeated requests, slow responses to questions, and no communication about deadlines and missing reports, followed by a letter that said, “Get this in or else.” Regular phone calls from CBCRP staff could help to establish a clear line of communication.

Better communication would be especially helpful during the application process and prior to finalizing the contract. Many community groups who have not participated in this level of research are not familiar with making necessary decisions such as who should be the fiscal agent and how to think through questions that arise in the development of the budget. Nonprofit organizations are accustomed to receiving funds with, or shortly after, a letter of award from a foundation. Community groups often don't know the required process for finalizing contracts and receiving funding. Community research partners are also somewhat reluctant about being completely open with CBCRP staff, for fear that the funding will be removed if they say something they shouldn't.

8. The CBCRP should ensure that partnerships are true collaborations.

Some of those interviewed didn't fully understand that collaborative research is time consuming and requires active participation from all parties to ensure full collaboration. Interviewees said that the time required, and the actual or feared conflicts, make this type of research less appealing to community members and academic researchers alike.

The CBCRP applications and written materials are geared toward the perspective of a research scientist. Even a community researcher may perceive the materials as playing down the importance of community involvement. For instance, the BCRP applications force the community collaborator to choose one co-principle investigator, even if the community partners are planning to act as a committee or group. The biographical information requested is also heavily slanted toward academic history, and the forms give minimal direction for applicants to elucidate their community involvement. The forms should make suggestions about the number, type, and structure of letters of support that applicants should include.

The CBCRP's report forms do not ask specifically for clear documentation of community involvement. In fact, several of the community collaborators had minimal contact with their own organization, let alone the larger community, about the research projects. Application materials and report forms should require a clear description of advisory board meetings, meetings held in the community, contacts made with the community, and other methods the collaboration plans to use for community input.

In addition, the CBCRP could identify key people in a community and get information from them about whether they've been involved in the project or not. Some of the suggestions made in point 7, above, for additional meetings, and for funding for more individuals to attend the meetings, could also help nurture and guide the collaborations.