A Call for Partners: Opportunities for Collaboration

The Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), a scientific research agency in the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, is the lead Federal agency supporting research on improving the quality, outcomes, and cost of health care.

To meet this charge, AHRQ (formerly the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research) is committed to developing a research agenda that responds to the needs of users, conducting and supporting research in partnership with public- and private-sector groups, and developing partnerships for disseminating research results and translating them into improved practice as quickly as possible.

AHRQ welcomes your suggestions at any time regarding your research needs and opportunities for collaboration. Here are just a few of the many ways that we can work together.

Communicating with Your Members

AHRQ can help your organization by:

Providing speakers or structuring a session at your annual meeting.
Drafting articles for your newsletters.
Providing templates of our publications so that you can reproduce them for your members.
Setting up and staffing a booth or exhibit at your annual meeting.
Putting your key leaders on AHRQ's mailing lists.

Ensuring that Our Research Agenda Responds to Your Needs

We invite you to:

Participate in research agenda-setting meetings that the Agency sponsors, or to submit ideas to us at any time.
Suggest topics for our Evidence-based Practice Centers (EPCs) and serve as a partner in using and implementing the evidence reports they produce. Our partners for the first round of EPC reports are now using them to develop their own clinical practice guidelines and quality improvement strategies.
Help us shape our research solicitations. In an effort to make our new program initiatives and research solicitations more responsive to your needs, AHRQ will solicit public input through notices on our Web site and through Federal Register notices. We urge you to watch for them, and to respond to them.

Developing Research Partnerships

We invite you to:

Co-fund research with us. AHRQ has recently co-funded research with a foundation and a non-profit organization. This approach, which enables both organizations to leverage their funds, occasionally supports research initiatives beyond the means of either organization acting alone, and broadens the pool of investigators.
Collaborate by using the AHRQ database and by sharing your research with us. There are opportunities for direct research collaborations where AHRQ staff can work with your research staff and databases in addressing questions of national significance.
Select to access information on Funding Opportunities for Research.
Submit a grant application. AHRQ's peer-reviewed grant mechanism can also be used to support research partnerships, especially when the research proposal can be divided into several distinct projects.

Translating and Disseminating Research Findings

We invite you to:

Co-fund timely research or dissemination conferences. AHRQ has a quick turn-around conference grant mechanism by which we can award up to $50,000 for national conferences with a research or research translation focus. We welcome your ideas for jointly funded conferences.
Help us expand the National Guideline Clearinghouse™ and CONQUEST, our compendium of quality measures.
Develop partnerships for broad-based dissemination of AHRQ publications or products. In the last 9 years, AHRQ has entered into dissemination partnerships that have resulted in the publication of millions of copies of AHRQ materials. Select to access our Publications Catalog.
Link your Web site to the AHRQ's Web site to give your members easy access to useful information. We prefer links to our Home Page. If you want to link to specific items in the site, please see Linking to the AHRQ Web Site.
Attend AHRQ briefings about projects of interest to your members. Invite AHRQ representatives to your key research briefings or press conferences.

For more information

Contact Carolyn M. Clancy, M.D., AHRQ's Director, or:

Larry T. Patton
Senior Advisor to the Director
Congressional and Public Liaison
Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality
540 Gaither Road, Suite 3000
Rockville, MD 20850
Phone: (301) 427-1486
Fax: (301) 427-1201

AHRQ Publication No. 00-PO24
Replaces AHCPR Publication No. 99-PO27
Current as of January 2000

Internet Citation:

A Call for Partners: Opportunities for Collaboration. AHRQ Publication No. 00-PO24, January 2000. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. http://www.ahrq.gov/fund/callfor.htm

Funding Opportunities
AHRQ Home Page
Department of Health and Human Services