211 Building a community of practice among research managers supporting mentorship research

Abstract

Objectives/Goals: The National Research Mentoring Network Coordination Center (NRMN CC) received funding from NIH to create an Online Community of Practice (OCoP) for Research Managers (RM). These RM contributed to advancing the research on the science of mentorship in STEMM. In a Proof of Concept, RM explored various aspects of their mentorship research support work. Methods/Study Population: An OCoP met 18 times across the 5-year grant to share experiences working to advance the science of mentorship in STEMM. Topics, frequency, and length of meetings were selected based upon several needs assessments surveys from the RM community. RM were invited to join the OCoP based on their roles as the point people for administrative activities in research projects (e.g., finances, budgets, training, and project management). RM often supervised staff, collected data, monitored IRB protocol compliance, and conducted research. RM played a pivotal role in the gathering and sharing of common measures across the 11 U01 studies to allow for greater confidence in research findings on mentorship (McConnell, 2021). Results/Anticipated Results: Our primary goal was to provide a supportive community for RM contributing to mentorship research and data sharing. The results from several needs assessments exemplified a request for this support from the community to engage in an OCoP focused on their professional development. Therefore, the OCoP served as a starting point to explore the duties, functions, roles and responsibilities of RM, and extended into providing professional development. Although the number of RM attending decreased as the grant entered the no-cost extension phase, a subgroup of RM expressed interest in continuing the OCoP to focus on dissemination of research findings, further supporting the need for this community. Discussion/Significance of Impact: RM supported 11 research projects and contributed to the data collection for over 6,000 participants. Few opportunities exist to create an OCoP for large scale data collection on experiences with mentorship in STEMM. RM were pivotal in their role with the NRMN to enhance the training and career development of individuals from diverse backgrounds.