Provincial Resources for Clinical Health Researchers
Do you do clinical research, health service research, or social/population health research?
The Office of Research and Innovation Services, in collaboration with CHRISA, is committed to supporting health research within our institution. Clinical health research can be challenging, especially in the context of meeting regulatory requirements, completing the necessary training, and navigating the diverse group of stakeholders. These resources will help researchers improve funding success and navigate the process of conducting clinical health research within the province of Alberta.
Alberta Clinical Research Consortium
The Alberta Clinical Research Consortium (ACRC) is dedicated to building provincial capacity and capabilities in clinical research. The ACRC is governed by an Executive Committee comprised of leaders from Alberta Health Services, Covenant Health, Alberta Innovates, the College of Physicians & Surgeons of Alberta, Alberta Health, the Ministry of Technology & Innovation, the Cross Cancer Institute, the Tom Baker Cancer Centre, and the Universities of Alberta and Calgary. Collectively, the ACRC looks to address system barriers and promote Alberta’s assets in clinical research.
The ACRC is focused on 5 strategic priorities to build high-quality, efficient, and integrated clinical research:
- Streamlined, efficient, and innovative clinical research
- Clinical research enabled by data and digital technologies
- Sustainable and qualified clinical research workforce and community
- Integrating clinical research into care
- Pathways to commercialization
In collaboration with our partner organizations, the ACRC has developed pragmatic tools and resources such as:
- Alberta Clinical Research Roadmap
The provincial clinical research roadmap provides interactive step-by-step instructions for how to navigate a clinical health research study. - Provincial Training Recommendations
High quality research stems from training and a knowledgeable research team. This training recommendation has been developed to guide individuals on the training courses that are recommended and applicable to their clinical health research work. - Glossary and Common Terminology
Developing streamlined province-wide processes requires the use of consistent terminology so the ACRC compiled a glossary of common terminology for reference. - Clinical Research Concierge Services
The ACRC concierge service connects researchers and their teams with the resources necessary to conduct research more effectively.
Contact: acrc@albertainnovates.ca or 780-429-6890
Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit
The Alberta SPOR SUPPORT Unit (AbSPORU)* offers a wide range of services and training opportunities to support every step of your patient-oriented research journey. They can help you build relationships and engage patient partners, as well as formulate your research with Alberta’s learning health systems in mind. Their aim is to bridge the gap between research evidence and health decisions to ensure that health research has an impact for patients and the health system. They provide:
- Data & Research Services, including
- Research design
- Data extraction and linkages
- Data management
- Biostatistics
- Knowledge Translation services
- Implementation Science services
- Patient Engagement services, including
- Developing patient engagement plans
- Working with persons with lived experience and caregivers
- Patient engagement process and experience evaluation
- Capacity development in patient-oriented research
- Providing diverse, responsive and integrated training opportunities designed to create a culture of learning and collaboration within Alberta’s health system and research communities
- Graduate studentships in patient-oriented research
- Graduate courses in patient-oriented research
*SPOR stands for the Strategy for Patient Oriented Research, which is a pan-Canadian initiative established by the Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR).