What is translational research?

Science-based problem solving: A field of investigation focused on understanding the practices and principles underlying the processes of turning knowledge, observations and discoveries into interventions that improve the health of individuals and the public.

Translating research in healthcare is challenging

Let’s say you’ve discovered a healthcare intervention you think could transform patients’ quality of care. You want to ensure that this intervention reaches as many people as possible. It can be anything from a drug, device, policy or even a change of practice.  

There are many barriers to cross before this intervention reaches the patients who need it.

What we study in the TRP is the different types of barriers we must get through to develop your intervention so that can be integrated into society.

Some of the barriers you may face in developing your intervention are:

  • Passing testing and regulation. Testing for harm and effectiveness. You must also meet certain standards to pass FDA and health Canada approval, and clinical trials and testing is incredibly expensive and time-consuming.
  • Securing funding. There are many ways to get funding:
    • Investors
    • Grants
    • Partnerships with companies
    • Competitions/hackathons
  • Getting your intervention on the market. Who is your target population? If you want your intervention to reach patients, you might want to consider putting it in hospitals, however, you’ll need to convince different healthcare professionals to adopt or endorse it. To do this, you’ll have to come up with different implementation strategies.

That’s just the tip of the iceberg. You’ll face many other challenges when trying to make a change within any healthcare system. In real life each of the barriers are very complicated and ambiguous. This is why translational research is important. Translational research is about overcoming these barriers and making sure that your innovation creates impactful benefits for human health.

How the TRP can help you

We will help you:

  • develop the skills to be creative in your approach, resilient and adaptable to the translational research environment.
  • have a better understanding of vital areas such as policy, finance and intellectual property.
  • enable you to build a wide and diverse collaborative network with people from vastly different backgrounds which will help you develop your ideas and your career.
  • approach innovation with human-centric design - always keeping patients at the heart of everything you do.

Find out more about how you will learn and what courses you can choose to personalize your program.