New - Study Coordinator Career Ladder

In 2014, the Medical School Research Board of Directors (RBOD) identified the strategic priority of transforming clinical trials at the University of Michigan to improve clinical care, value, and health outcomes by successfully executing a diverse portfolio of high-quality clinical trials. The Clinical Trials Subcommittee, a committee of the Research Board of Directors, was charged with working with the Medical School Office of Research to address the six strategies to achieve our enterprise goal. One of the major six strategies determined was to develop a highly trained, innovative, and skilled workforce, including those who initiate and those who conduct clinical trials.

Over the past year, the CTSO has worked diligently to assess and revamp the current clinical research coordinator career ladder. Employee engagement surveys have consistently identified a desire for professional growth as the most highly rated concern of clinical research staff. In response to this and in the interest of ensuring that Michigan Medicine remains competitive in both recruiting and retaining the best clinical research staff members, a committee was formed to both critically evaluate and update the existing job titles.

The Study Coordinator Career Ladder committee successfully created a clinical research coordinator career ladder that takes into account both the key competencies required at each level, as well as leadership and management responsibilities. The ladder aims to clarify the expected competencies, performance metrics and certification requirements for each job classification. Over the next six months, they will request information from both coordinators and principal investigators that will be used to map all clinical research staff into the new clinical subject coordinator, clinical research coordinator and clinical research project manager job classifications.

In the coming months, there will be open forums to review the career ladder in detail with principal investigators and department/division administrators. Email invites for the upcoming forums are forthcoming.

For questions, contact Cyndi Bower, MS at bower@med.umich.edu.