Evaluating Research Centers In Minority Institutions: Framework, Metrics, Best Practices, and Challenges

The NIH-funded Research Centers in Minority Institutions (RCMI) program is currently funding 18 academic institutions to strengthen the research environment and contribution to health disparities research. The purpose of this multiphase mixed-methods study was to establish a uniform evaluation framework for demonstrating the collective success of this research consortium. Methods included discussions of aims and logic models at the RCMI Evaluators’ Workshop, a literature review to inform an evaluation conceptual framework, and a case study survey to obtain evaluation-related information and metrics. Ten RCMIs participated in the workshop and 14 submitted responses to the survey. The resultant RCMI Evaluation Conceptual Model presents a practical ongoing approach to document RCMIs’ impacts on health disparities. Survey results identified 37 common metrics under four primary categories. Evaluation challenges were issues related to limited human resources, data collection, decision-making, defining metrics, cost-sharing, and revenue-generation. There is a need for further collaborative efforts across RCMI sites to engage program leadership and community stakeholders in addressing the identified evaluation challenges and measurement. Program leadership should be engaged to apply the Evaluation Conceptual Framework and common metrics to allow for valid inter-institutional comparisons and consortium-wide evaluations. Stakeholders could ensure evaluation metrics are used to facilitate community impacts

The End of the Corporation

Corporate governance is undergoing a quiet, but quick transformation. The rise of digital technologies is forcing companies to reconsider existing business models, but also how they organize themselves and structure firm governance. This chapter introduces the main features of the modern corporation and corporate governance, outlines how digital technologies are disrupting this business form, and describes the new business “ecosystems” that are emerging to replace the modern corporation. The chapter argues that in a networked age, all businesses need to “go digital.” Companies need to become innovation machines, and this means that every firm needs to become a “tech” company and a “media” company. If they do not, younger and more agile competitors better attuned to the realities of the new digital world will replace them. For incumbents, the risks are existential. Established firms must adapt to the new digital environment by embracing the ecosystem model, or they will die