The Coordinating Center (CC) for the Older Americans Independence Centers (OAIC) Program plans, initiates, facilitates, and coordinates activities that maximize OAIC collaborations. Our guiding philosophy is to focus on activities that promise high impact but would be difficult for individual OAICs to achieve on their own, and which result in collaborations that unlock synergy, thereby making the whole (the OAIC program) greater than its parts (the individual centers and investigators). Our preliminary data show that the present cycle has been the most successful and productive to date. The proposed new cycle will build on and extend these accomplishments with initiatives embedded in the following four Specific Aims, which were informed by our preliminary data, including our evaluation processes and our structured interviews with three key groups of stakeholders: directors of all 15 OAICs, a panel of early career investigators, and NIA program officials. Specific Aim 1. Enhance communications and coordination within the OAIC program and with the greater aging research community. Specific Aim 2. Facilitate and promote OAIC-themed collaborative research. Specific Aim 3. Enhance the development of the next generation of researchers in aging. Specific Aim 4. Accelerate implementation of key OAIC research findings into member health care systems and their communities. We will achieve these aims by capitalizing on: 1) our 17 years of experience and earned trust in progressively building collaborations; 2) an expanded, multi-disciplinary, cohesive, multi-institutional team of experienced leaders with complementary skills and well-defined roles; 3) our well established processes, including four working groups and inclusion of key stakeholders; 4) regular input and guidance from the OAIC Directors Committee and NIA program officials; and 5) continously evaluating progress toward each aim and overall goals of the program. This proposed renewal of the CC will further increase the breadth and depth of OAIC collaboration, provide vital new research opportunities, particularly for early career investigators, promote career development of new investigators, and disseminate key OAIC research findings to improve the healthcare of older Americans.
