News By: Gary Cramer

ACRP Fellow Erika Stevens, MA, FACRP, reflects on her ongoing campaign for recognition of the clinical research industry as a profession, how change is the one constant in the industry, and the critical need for robust clinical development activities to treat patients and improve health outcomes.

The design of clinical trials is shifting from “one-off” to continuous, or “always-on,” trials. This shift is made possible by the adoption of a range of decentralized clinical trial technologies, real-time data capture, and adaptive trial designs, which encourage flexible models of research. The goal of continuous trials is to offer the potential for continuous data collection, hypothesis generation, and data analysis, and hence the generation of new evidence over time.

“You cannot lead an organization beyond your capacity to lead yourself,” said career coach Muriel Maignan Wilkins, CEO and Founder of Paravis Partners, as she and other expert panelists offered advice and insights on leadership as a clinical trial competency during a Signature Series gathering on Sunday (April 26) at ACRP 2026 in Orlando.

As the ACRP 2026 schedule came to a close in Orlando on Monday (April 27), Signature Series speaker David Burrow, PharmD, JD, Director, Office of Scientific Investigations, U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), urged his audience to “act with courage, driven by purpose” and to take Sun Tzu’s philosophy about finding opportunity in the midst of chaos to heart.

With due consideration to the late writer Maya Angelou’s paraphrased sentiment that “you can’t really know where you’re going until you know where you’ve been,” Signature Series panelists who gathered at ACRP 2026 in Orlando on Saturday (April 25) weighed in on the theme of “Embrace the Now, Ignite What’s Next” for the clinical research enterprise.