Commentary Rehabilitation medicine summit : building research capacity

The general objective of the "Rehabilitation Medicine Summit: Building Research Capacity" was to advance and promote research in medical rehabilitation by making recommendations to expand research capacity. The five elements of research capacity that guided the discussions were: 1) researchers; 2) research culture, environment, and infrastructure; 3) funding; 4) partnerships; and 5) metrics. The 100 participants included representatives of professional organizations, consumer groups, academic departments, researchers, governmental funding agencies, and the private sector. The small group discussions and plenary sessions generated an array of problems, possible solutions, and recommended actions. A post-Summit, multi-organizational initiative is called to pursue the agendas outlined in this report (see Additional File 1). The advancement of medical science depends on the production, availability, and utilization of new information generated by research. A successful research enterprise depends not only on a carefully designed agenda that responds to clinical and societal needs, but also on the research capacity necessary to perform the work. Research that is likely to enhance clinical practice presupposes the existence of a critical mass of investigators working as teams in supportive environments. Unfortunately, far too little research capacity of that kind exists in rehabilitation medicine to ensure a robust future for the field. The "Rehabilitation Medicine Summit: Building Research Capacity" was conceptualized as a way of fashioning a long-term plan to foster the required developments (see Additional File 1). Objectives The general objective of the summit was to advance and promote research in medical rehabilitation by making recommendations to expand research capacity. More specific objectives were to: 1) bring together leaders in medical rehabilitation research to characterize current research capacity in the field and identify obstacles to expanding that capacity; 2) propose specific actions and mechanisms Published: 03 January 2006 Journal of NeuroEngineering and Rehabilitation 2006, 3:1 doi:10.1186/1743-0003-3-1 Received: 01 December 2005 Accepted: 03 January 2006 This article is available from: http://www.jneuroengrehab.com/content/3/1/1 © 2006 Frontera et al; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.