Completion of a standardizable competency-based research training program improves understanding and preparedness for both new and experienced clinical research professionals.

Clinical research professionals (CRPs) are integral to the academic medical center workforce, research operations, and daily clinical research tasks; however, due to inconsistent training, there is a shortage of qualified CRPs. The Joint Task Force for Clinical Trial Competency created a competency framework for CRPs, which has demonstrated positive results from various institutions, but training programs have been limited in standardization, replicability, and dissemination. To improve this, we designed the University of Texas Southwestern (UTSW) Medical Center Clinical Research Foundations (CRF) training program, which is a competency-based online self-paced CRP training curriculum hosted via the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative (CITI) portal.