Research December 2025 Newsletter
Dear Colleagues,
Please mark your calendars—Research Day 2026 is officially set for Tuesday, April 21st! We look forward to bringing our community together once again to celebrate inquiry, innovation, and the impactful work happening across our institution. Additional details, including the call for abstracts and event agenda, will be shared in the coming months.
We would also like to extend a sincere thank you to the more than 100 colleagues who took the time to complete our R&D Improvement Survey. We heard your concerns as well as your compliments, and over the next several months we will be working to address the issues raised and implement solutions to help our processes flow more smoothly.
Thank you for your continued commitment to advancing research excellence.
Warm regards,
Michael Wilson, MD, PhD
Clinical Trial Aims to Improve Lung Cancer Detection in Smokers
Clinical Trials Spotlight— Department of Medicine
Annual Report Sizzle Reel
Celebrating Saige Dagenhart’s 1 Year Anniversary with Carilion!
Melissa Mercure Named Among 2025 Shine Award Honorees
Enrollment Milestone Reached!
Your Feedback Is In—Action Starts Now!
You asked, we linked
Click here to see our prior newsletter editions (scroll down to “Research and Development News”)!
Your Research. Your Story. Your Impact.
Have you ever wanted to share the story behind your research — what drives you, what excites you, and why it matters? Our Marketing team is creating short videos featuring researchers like you!
This is your opportunity to showcase your work, inspire others, and shine a light on the discoveries shaping the future of health and science.
👉 Interested? Email Nicole Arbogast to learn more or sign up!
Submitting an NIH Grant for the January cycle? Start now—don’t get caught in the crunch!
If you plan to submit a NIH grant application for the January cycle, please remember to notify the appropriate contact in advance:
- For Department of Medicine submissions: Please also email Julie Eckstrand with your plans.
- For all other submissions: Email Melissa Mercure to inform her of your intent to apply.
Your early notification helps ensure proper support and coordination. Thank you!
Payroll Costing Allocations (PCAs) for Effort on Sponsored Projects
To help simplify effort reporting on sponsored projects, the grants team can set up Payroll Costing Allocations (PCAs) for any staff or physician whose time should be charged to a sponsored project. A PCA assigns a percentage of any employee's salary directly to the appropriate grant worktag, ensuring payroll expenses are automatically routed to the correct award for each pay period.
Once the percent effort is confirmed and the PCA in place, investigators, physicians, and staff whose time is on a sponsored project don't need to manually adjust payroll charges. The PCA remains active for the designated sponsored project period, and the only required follow-up is completing the quarterly Workday effort attestation to verify that the recorded effort matches the work performed. If you need to add or update a PCA for your project, please contact the grant administrator assigned to your sponsored project.
Workday Implementation Update
With the successful implementation of Workday, we’ve made significant progress in transitioning sponsored project financial data. Life-to-Date data have been converted from Lawson for all sponsored projects, and validation of this data is currently underway to ensure accuracy and completeness.
At the same time, we are collaborating with consultants to develop custom reports that will help monitor project finances. Each report is rigorously verified against validated data before release to maintain reliability.
We are also partnering with HR to create training modules for PIs, Research Directors, and other Research Leaders. As with any large-scale, system-wide implementation, this process is taking longer than anticipated. We expect these learning modules to be available in early 2026.
In the meantime, if you have any questions about your sponsored project, please reach out to your R&D liaison for assistance.
Carilion Clinic TriNetX
Virtual Training Schedule
Carilion offers instructor-led, focused training for an in-depth, step-by-step learning experience building patient cohorts and delving into Analytics. The facilitator will be Dee Myers. Please get in touch with HART@carilionclinic.org with the subject of 'TriNetX Training' for training outside of the scheduled sessions. If you haven’t taken a class or need a refresher, this is your opportunity to do so! Let Dee Myers know which date you prefer and she will send a meeting invitation.
- Dec 17, 10:30am - noon
- Jan 8, 10:30am – noon
- Jan 21, 1:30 – 3pm
- Feb 4, 10:30am - noon
- Feb 19, 1:30 – 3pm
- Mar 4, 10:30am – noon
- Mar 26, 1:30 – 3pm
https://redcap.link/v5pw9j7j to sign up for TriNetX digitally.
For more information visit:https://redcapweb.carilionclinic.org/redcap/surveys/?s=dcUCIpMAzk8BqKH2