Advocating for awareness of clinical research, with all of its possible career options, in public and policy-making circles is an often quiet but mighty endeavor, but one lately being taken on at ever greater volume by a variety of cheerleaders.
Some of the most vocal boosters are part of the Association of Clinical Research Professionals’ (ACRP’s) Partners Advancing the Clinical Research Workforce (PACRW), a multi-stakeholder collaborative of industry leaders who are committed to building a diverse, research-ready workforce for the enterprise. Updates on recent initiatives and “where do we go from here” musings were brought to the table at a meeting held during ACRP 2026 in Orlando and attended by representatives of organizations participating in PACRW.
The sentiment of “what got us here, won’t get us there” encapsulates the view presented by Denise Snyder, MS, RD, LDN, FACRP, Associate Dean of Clinical Research at the Duke University School of Medicine, meaning that overcoming challenges from hiring freezes at many types of study sites—freezes largely prompted by recent massive cuts in federal funding for clinical research and related activities—requires nimbleness on the part of short-staffed organizations. Part of that nimbleness, she said, is spreading the word that the return on investment generated by research conducted at academic medical centers and other hosts of clinical trials is demonstrated by how “we’re supporting a whole lot more [than a dollar in economic benefit] every time we get a federal dollar.”
The PACRW meeting at ACRP 2026 also featured details on clinical research workforce–related topics from:
- Catherine Gregor, MBA, CCRC, Vice Chair of the ACRP Board of Trustees and Chief Clinical Trial Officer at Florence Healthcare, who has been educating key contacts on Capitol Hill about how the clinical research enterprise works from a nonpartisan perspective and is soon to chair a new advocacy and governance committee for ACRP.
- Susan Landis, Chief Executive Officer of ACRP, who described the Association’s ongoing project on “Rethinking Site Selection: Engaging Non-Traditional Sites to Improve Recruitment and Representation.”
- Meghan Brodie, BS, MS, ACRP-CP, Program Manager for Education and Communications at AdventHealth, who outlined the workings of a 15-week core competency course completed by 26 cohorts of the company’s employees in a wide range of research-related roles so far since 2021.
- Jared Kerr, JD, MPH, President of the Consortium of Academic Programs in Clinical Research (CoAPCR) and Clinical Associate Professor and Graduate Program Coordinator for Clinical Research at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, updating the room on the second phase of an ACRP-CoAPCR project studying the association between ACRP-CP Certification exam scores and recent graduation from accredited academic programs in clinical research.
- Jessica Fritter, DHSc, MACPR, ACRP-CP, FACRP, Associate Clinical Professor and Director, Master of Clinical Research and Certificate Programs, The Ohio State University, who highlighted career mapping efforts that resulted in a recent Clinical Researcher article written with a handful of colleagues, “From Mapping Your Pathway to Traversing a Career.”
- Shannon Chism, Education and Research Consulting Senior Director for Huron Consulting Group, who addressed the long-term workings of Huron’s Research RADIUS Benchmarking Survey, which is free for clinical research organizations to participate in and receive comparative data from, so that lessons may be learned about, for instance, the effects of various workforce structure and distribution tactics on training and compliance outcomes.
“Expanding the workforce is vital to the future of safe, effective, and efficient clinical trials,” said Landis about the ongoing mission of PACRW. “We are grateful to our consortium members for their leadership in removing barriers to entry and driving meaningful improvements in how the industry recruits and supports clinical research professionals.”
Reported by Gary Cramer
