17 - Partnering With the Research Community for Educational Outreach

Background: Noncompliance within a research program may result from a lack of understanding of the research regulatory framework or challenges implementing research rules, rather than willful neglect. It is challenging to find an engaging format to share information with the research community on how to conduct research in a compliant manner.

Program

Description: We established the Animal Research Community (ARC) Group as an educational outreach program and as a collaboration between IACUC, the Center for Comparative Medicine (CCM), and the animal research community. Each investigator with an approved IACUC protocol identified an ARC representative who must attend monthly online seminar meetings and share information with their teams. The meetings are recorded and made available online with the slide set and pertinent resources. An executive committee, led by the IACUC and CCM Directors, together with researcher members, meets for 30 minutes quarterly to plan meeting agendas. Invited speakers include researchers who share best practices with their peers. Formats included slide presentations, video-based trainings and active learning approaches. Success is measured by investigator feedback, attendance, and the number of reportable non-compliance events.

Program

Assessment: The program was implemented in June 2020, with one-hour monthly meetings held during 2020 and 2021. To make the program sustainable, starting in 2022, the schedule was revised to a 90-minute quarterly meeting schedule. The research community is large (>350 PIs with >900 approved protocols). An electronic tracking tool is used to monitor attendance. We consistently had approximately 50% of the community attend the meetings through 2022, although that number is starting to decline with one-third of the ARC represented at each meeting to date in 2023 (150 attendees). We had to implement a process to track new investigators to ensure they identified an ARC representative. Feedback received was positive with some investigators encouraging additional laboratory members to attend the meetings. The number of reportable noncompliance events decreased by 40 % between calendar year 2020 and 2022.

Limitations: It can be challenging to measure beyond inference whether these educational sessions directly impact the number of reportable noncompliance events at the institution. It is also difficult to determine whether attendance equates to learning. Research staff are often hesitant to make suggestions for the agenda, fearing retribution by the IACUC. This challenge led to the development of an anonymous feedback portal.

Discussion: We will continue the ARC program, focusing on more researcher engagement in meeting planning and presentation to promote peer-to-peer learning. We are reviewing attendance data as part of noncompliance investigations to more directly understand the relationship between attendance, meeting agenda topics, and laboratory compliance. The ARC has provided a forum for other departments and committees to address the research community directly for updates and announcements. This program allows administration and research community to engage in a collaborative discussion to improve compliance in a proactive manner that can easily be adopted with few resources at almost any institution.