By Stephanie Warth,
Clinical Research Resources Office (CRRO)
Trainings from the Clinical Research Resources Office!
Is it Spring yet?? Well, we have some spring trainings that will be sure to ease our way out from the snow! Check out the upcoming educational offerings from the Clinical Research Resources Office (CRRO)! Consider taking the “Fundamentals” or “Principal Investigator” trainings; and check out our upcoming Clinical Research Seminar and RPN Workshop calendars as we “Spring” into the new season!
Check out the CRRO trainings below to register, and view past trainings, too!
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The next Fundamentals in the Conduct of Clinical Research will take place on 5 Tuesdays in March 2026: (3, 10, 17, 24, 31) from 8:30am-11:00am. This amounts to 12.5 hours of content in five 2.5-hour sessions. This training will cover key topics and concepts to promote the ethical conduct of research study activities, and is ideal for new study staff as well as those wanting a refresher. Completion of this training will fulfill the GCP training requirement for clinical trials research for 3 years. Register here! (Note, we will accept registrations until noon on Monday March 2nd.)
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If you are not able to get in under the wire for March Fundamentals, don’t worry, we’re here for you. Our next Fundamentals will be held on 5 Tuesdays in June 2026: 2, 9, 16, 23, 30, from 8:30am-11:00am. Register here!
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The next Principal Investigator Role training will take place on Tuesday, May 5, 2026, 8:00am–11:30am. This 3.5 hour training is for new PIs, as well as experienced PIs who want a refresher. The training will cover responsibilities of the investigator/sponsor-investigator, navigating the IRB application, protocol adherence, informed consent, safety monitoring/reporting, and documentation. Completion of this training will fulfill the GCP training requirement for clinical trials research for 3 years. Register here!
If you have any questions about which of the above trainings to take, please review this comparison between Fundamentals and PI Training.
- Clinical Research Seminars take place on the second Wednesday of each month at noon. Please check the CRRO Clinical Research Seminars website soon to learn about the February 2026 offering!
In January, we learned about “From K Aims to Execution: Building the Behavioral and Implementation Clinical Research Infrastructure as an Early Career Investigator” from Kirsten Austad, MD, MPH. In February, we learned about “Don’t Ghost Your Study: Proper Closeout for IRB and IT” from Carolyn Swain, MPH and David Corbett, JD. These were GREAT presentations; and if you haven’t seen them in real-time, then check out video and slides that are/will be posted in our Seminar Library!
Stay in Touch!
The RPN Workshops are one of the main offerings of the Research Professional Network (RPN). The workshops (offered via Zoom) are a series of peer-led, inter-institutional workshops focused on topics relevant to our research professional staff, and based on the Joint Task Force for Clinical Trial Competency Framework. The workshops are designed to give attendees a chance to engage with each other and to practice the learnings. Workshops are led by Research Professional peers from the collaborating sites: BUMC/BU Medical Campus, University of Vermont, University of Florida, and Medical University of South Carolina. This gives us opportunity to learn from and engage with those from other academic medical centers as well as our own.
The most recent RPN workshop entitled, “Informed Consent: Being the Participant Advocate” occurred on Thursday, February 26, 2026, and equipped research staff with practical skills to design and conduct informed consent that protects participant rights and supports voluntary decision-making. Through real-world examples and interactive exercises, attendees received actionable tools to make consent processes more accessible, understandable, and ethically sound.
The next RPN workshop is on Monday, March 30, 2026, and is entitled, Wrangling REDCap to Successfully Support Your Research. Sign up at this link!
- Click here to register for upcoming RPN Workshops.
- The Research Professionals Network (RPN) is open to all research professionals on the BU Medical Campus and BMC. Click here to join
- Click here to access our RPN Workshop Library to see videos and slides from past RPN Workshops.
We would love to hear from you about other topics you would like to see presented in either the Clinical Research Seminars or the RPN Workshops. Just contact Stephanie Warth (snwarth@bu.edu) with your ideas, and whether you are interested in presenting as well!
The CRRO is supported by the Boston University Clinical Translational Science Institute (CTSI) and the Office of Human Research Affairs.