Improving Our Program Through Evaluation
California taxpayers deserve to have the funds they provide for breast cancer research be spent wisely. That’s why the California Breast Cancer Research Program is conducting a multi-year, formal evaluation of the entire program. Evaluation helps the program target research dollars where they will do the most to reduce and end the suffering caused by breast cancer.
Over the past several years, we have evaluated several of our grant programs: the Community Research Collaboration awards, the Postdoctoral Fellowship awards, the New Investigator awards, and the Innovative, Developmental, Exploratory Awards (IDEAs). The results of these evaluations are being used by our highest leadership body, the Breast Cancer Research Council, to set priorities for the coming years.
Evaluation Leading to Improvement
We use formal evaluations to improve the CBCRP. Examples of changes we’ve
made as a result of evaluations include:
• We used our formal evaluation of our Community Research Collaborations
to embark on a successful, ongoing, multi-year outreach and training effort.
The goal is to increase the number of community organizations and scientific
researchers collaborating on breast cancer research questions of interest
to communities of California women.
•
Our evaluation during 2002 of the CBCRP’s New Investigator awards,
combined with our 2001 evaluation of our Postdoctoral Fellowship awards,
led us to introduce two new types of grants. During the evaluation, scientists
who had received New Investigator awards, which are designed to increase
California’s pool of talented breast cancer researchers, suggested
encouraging people to enter this field even earlier in their careers. In
response, the CBCRP instituted Diversity and Dissertation awards. Diversity
awards are made to promising graduate or undergraduate students who face
economic or social barriers to embarking on a career in breast cancer research.
The students work under a CBCRP-funded scientific investigator. Dissertation
awards fund dissertation research conducted by masters or doctoral candidates,
working under breast cancer research mentors.
We plan to continue evaluating more of the types of grants we make and to continue making improvements as a result of these evaluations.
