From: Assessing excellence in translational cancer research: a consensus based framework
Excellence criteria | Sub-criteria/questions to help peer-reviewers assess cancer centres |
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Theme 1. Organizational policies and strategies | |
Evidence for integration of Basic, Translational, and Clinical research with excellence in all areas | Effective communication between multidisciplinary teams? |
Centre is treating patients in at least 3 major cancer types at an internationally competitive level | Sufficient patient volume? |
Appropriate infrastructure? | |
Internationally recognized medical specialists? | |
Expertise level? | |
Mechanisms are in place for continuous quality assurance. | Defined protocols for: |
Output monitoring? | |
Peer review programs? | |
Ethical standards? | |
Teaching good practices? | |
Scientific misconduct provisions? | |
Theme 2. People management | |
Clear recruiting strategy to promote excellence | Internationally competitive recruiting? |
Attention for gender issues? | |
Independence of PIs is clearly defined | Defined institutional support for PIs? |
Incentives to improve leadership competencies in place? | |
The research program of PIs is regularly evaluated | Scientific output? |
Multidisciplinary activities? | |
Regular site visits? | |
Mechanisms are in place to involve basic researchers and clinicians in translational research | Active participation of clinicians in basic/translational research? |
Institute clearly facilitates participation? | |
Is interaction between clinicians and basic researcheffectively stimulated? | |
Number of clinicians participating in MD-PhD programs during last 5 years? | |
Mechanisms to promote collaboration with research teams outside the Centre | Number and quality of joint output? |
Partners are internationally leading? | |
Theme 3. Research infrastructure/competencies | |
Centre has internationally competitive facilities and proven forefront expertise in a substantial number of key areas. | Prominence in number of the following areas: |
- Identifying, validating, and designing rational Rx strategies directed at key molecular cancer targets? | |
- Surgery, innovative operation theaters. | |
- Radiotherapy infrastructure? | |
- Next generation sequencing and other “omics”? | |
- Bioinformatics and computational biology (both infrastructure and innovation) | |
- Robotic screening (drugs, shRNA, siRNA)? | |
- Advanced microscopy facilities (e.g. confocal, lifetime imaging, flow cytometry etc)? | |
- Clinical imaging and innovative modalities? | |
- Prominence in area of animal model systems? | |
- State of the art biobank with clinical informatics linked with genomic and other data? | |
- Patient registry with strong biostatistical support? | |
- PK, PD monitoring phase 1/2 clinical trials? | |
- Pharmaceutical production/formulation? | |
- Production biologicals for use in patients? | |
- Molecular pathology? | |
- Good interface with chemistry, physics, engineering, mathematics etc? | |
- Population studies and resources such as cohorts? | |
- Health economics; primary care links; early detection programmes? | |
- Technology Transfer support? | |
- Other? | |
Theme 4. Clinical (trial) management | |
Clinical trials are well designed | Number of innovative aspects: |
- Has it performed groundbreaking proof of Concept trials? Were these based on molecular tumor parameters? | |
- Innovative stratification of patients (adaptive trial design)? | |
- Investigator-initiated trials? | |
- First in man? | |
- Substantial fraction of phaseI/II trials? | |
- Advanced modeling (e.g. PDX)? | |
Centre utilizes an internal review system to select for the most innovative and promising protocols. | Evidence that this has lead to innovative trials over a 5-year period? |
Patients enrolled in clinical trials | A substantial fraction (>10%) of patients is enrolled in phase I/II trials? |
Continuous improvement of the quality of patient care | Appropriate monitoring with patient participation in the process? |
Outcome is at forefront and based on patient mix treated | Proper benchmarking? |
Theme 5. Internationally recognized excellence | |
Research has resulted in changes in clinical thinking and practice – emphasis on physician investigators. | - Examples to be listed. |
- Best in class young and mid career physician-investigator faculty recruited and retained by the Centre | |
Is the Centre training and recruiting ever better physician/oncologist-investigators? | |
The Centre has an international reputation ranking it in the top 10% segment | Evident from: |
- Output related to size and expenditure based on independent benchmarking performed within last 3 years. | |
- Substantial impact is evident in all three research areas (basic, translational, clinical). | |
- High rating by international peers | |
- Prestigious collaborations | |
- Accreditation status | |
National/international awards | |
- Prestigious competitive grants obtained | |
Theme 6. Financial expertise | |
Efficient financial management and support | Appropriate support for managing external grants and clinical research projects including contracts with industry. |
A substantial fraction of income is obtained through funding bodies that employ a critical review process. | Objective success in open competition for grants. |