The CCSRC will be guided by these principles:
- The CCSRC will promote the validity and reliability of research findings, thus promoting their generalizability into policy and practice in a variety of care settings.
- The CCSRC will prevent duplication of research efforts in Canada, and increase system efficiency through collaboration and collective effort.
- The CCSRC will promote Canadian research findings internationally, and will incorporate survivorship research, learning and knowledge from other jurisdictions into the Canadian context.
- The CCSRC will be a respected reference body in the field of cancer survivorship research and knowledge exchange.
As cancer-survival rates improve and the length of survival time increases, developing a national research agenda in Canada to inform health-care service delivery and foster collaboration among stakeholders is essential. Given constrained health-care resources, and a lack of system-wide core funding for survivorship services, a coordinated Canadian initiative on cancer survivorship can generate knowledge quickly. Research and evaluation with exchange and transfer of this knowledge through active programs can help achieve this. Additionally, it can advise nationally on formats, mechanisms, and programs to address these needs.
Consortiums have been reported on both national and international levels in cancer prevention, quality of life, epidemiological groups as well as other applications. The merits of a research consortium are frequently cited when the aim is to achieve efficiencies in creating generalizability of findings, reducing duplication of efforts, and achieving greater statistical power thereby increasing validity and reliability of findings. A significant potential advantage of this approach is the opportunity to access large and diverse sample populations that facilitate early research results and the potential to translate findings into clinical practice at a much faster rate.
The purpose of the Canadian Cancer Survivorship Research Consortium (CCSRC) is to build the initial infrastructure for national (and subsequently, international) collaboration to better understand the unique needs of cancer survivors, and the most efficient ways to address these needs. To develop that evidentiary base, the activities of the CCSRC will facilitate strategic collaborative action: national meetings between survivorship experts, collaborative research submissions for competitive funding, knowledge translation of existing research for program implementation and evaluation, and increased opportunities for mentoring the next generation of researchers. The CCSRC will produce better science to improve survivorship care.
Reports demonstrating the need for a consortium:
