Research Centers - University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing

Research Centers: Integration and Training in Nursing Science
A message from Afaf I. Meleis, PhD, DrPS(hon), FAAN, FRCN, the Margaret Bond Simon Dean of Nursing
Welcome to the Fall 2007 issue of
our UPfront magazine and welcome
to another transformational year at Penn
Nursing. In this issue, we will discuss the
role our research centers have played in
revolutionizing our School.
What are research centers; why do
nursing schools develop research centers;
why does the discipline of nursing need them;
who are the members of such centers; how
different are the centers from departments,
divisions, and University institutes; and what
are some outcomes of such centers? This
issue of UPfront will answer some of these
questions and help shed some light on the
growing presence of research centers in
schools of nursing.
Investing in research centers is
investing in advancing knowledge, in
developing science, in training future
generations of scientists, and most
importantly, in providing quality care based
on evidence. We have taken the need for
this investment very seriously by establishing
connections over many years, with University
of Pennsylvania at-large research institutes and
centers and by establishing six research centers
at our School.
Our School, one of twelve on the
Penn campus, gives faculty options and
opportunities to benefit from the exceptional
academic and scientific resources of many of
the University’s schools. Our faculty are active
partners and members of a number of leading
interdisciplinary University-wide research
institutes, such as The Leonard Davis Institute
of Health Economics, the Abramson Family
Cancer Research Institute, and the Institute
on Aging. Equally as important, many of our
faculty co-lead or are members of research
centers housed in other schools. Two
examples are the Center for Sleep Research
and Neurobiology and the Firearm & Injury
Center at Penn, both of which are primarily
housed in the School of Medicine.
The Penn environment that
supports and promotes this extraordinary
interdisciplinarity is reflected in how we
conduct our business in our School. Our two
divisions are administrative units organized
to promote the development of the quality
of teaching, scholarship, and research
activities of their faculty members and to
foster the welfare of the faculty, especially
with regard to balancing the execution of
teaching, research, and practice missions.
The Biobehavioral and Health Sciences
Division, led by Dr. Terri Weaver, houses
faculty with interests in physiology, sleep,
pain management, violence, transitional care,
gerontological science, eating behaviors,
outcomes research, and other aspects of
adult health and illness within complex health
systems. The Family and Community Health
Division, led by Dr. Lois Evans, brings together
faculty with expertise in women’s health,
nursing of children, mental health, primary
care, and community health. Together, our
division members carry the responsibilities
for teaching across all programs and in all
specialties. They not only develop, but also
help translate knowledge into teaching and
clinical care.
Our research centers have
different but complementary missions to
our divisions. As the number of scientists
increased, as paradigms that drive the
research enterprise in nursing were
articulated, and as the nursing perspective
and domain became well defined, it
became apparent that individual research
trajectories would not fast track knowledge
development in nursing. Advancing science
requires dedicated communities of scholars
with similar expertise, a shared vision about
a field of investigation, opportunities for
critical dialogues, pooling of resources,
coherent frameworks, and collaboration and
support in building methods and research
techniques.
Research centers provide all of this
by bringing together thought leaders to
mentor and train others and to articulate
research findings coherently toward
translating knowledge into practice and
changing policies. Single researchers
develop programs of research, while centers
connect programs, deepen and enrich
findings, foster interconnectivity between
findings and investigators, and promote
schools of thought that tend to create
turning points in entire disciplines.
Our first research center, the Barbara
Bates Center for the Study of the History of
Nursing, was established in 1985, followed
by the Center for Health Outcomes and
Policy Research and Center for Gerentologic
Nursing Science. More recently, three
centers were established to respond to
pressing national priorities for healthcare
research: the Center for Health Disparities
Research (2005), the Biobehavioral Research
Center (2005), and the Center for Transitions
and Health (2006).
These research centers—the
producers of knowledge—are committed
to addressing complex issues facing
health systems, healthcare providers, and
caregivers around the world, to translating
our science into practice, to training future
nurse scientists, and to fostering multidisciplinary
partnerships among our scholars
and others from a variety of interest areas.
These centers have contributed
to many national dialogues, providing
the base for some turning points in the
policies related to staffing ratios and work
environments, care models for the elderly,
preventive care strategies for vulnerable
populations with HIV and AIDS, nourishment
of premature babies, promoting healthy
transitions for the young and the old, and
enhancing safety in healthcare systems.
Research centers are dynamic
and changing. They are developed and
2 | care to change the world