Francisco Sy (Public Health) and his co-authors from University of Nebraska, West Virginia University, University of North Dakota, University of Mississippi, Louisiana State University, University of Puerto Rico, University of Hawai'i at Mānoa, Brown University, Tufts University, and University of Oklahoma, recently published a research article titled, "Building a collaborative ecosystem across the IDeA-CTR networks in response to a public health emergency," in the Journal of Clinical and Translational Science. 

The National COVID Cohort Collaborative (N3C) was established as a centralized enclave in 2020 to support the study of COVID-19 across the U.S. The Institutional Development Award for Clinical and Translational Research (IDeA-CTR) centers enhanced N3C's national response by bringing representation from rural and medically underserved communities. This improved the representation of our diverse populations in the N3C Enclave and its use for research by IDeA-state investigators. Our collaborative approach led to participation by 12 IDeA-CTRs, representing over 400 investigators from 23 sites. This collaborative model provides a roadmap and framework for future efforts among IDeA-CTRs and other academic partnerships. The socio-technical ecosystem fostered collectivism and team science, enabling the consortium to achieve far more than isolated efforts could, offering valuable insights for interdisciplinary research across geographically dispersed communities.