The Georgia Health Policy Center (GHPC) reached an all-time high of 20 peer-reviewed research publications in 2022, one of many annual research accomplishments during the first full year of implementation of its new five-year strategic plan.
“I believe it is at the intersection of the problem-solving cycle and the research cycle that the center holds great opportunity to contribute to practice and scholarship,” says Karen Minyard, Ph.D., GHPC’s CEO. “As a university-based research center, GHPC recognizes the importance of disseminating it research for the greater good and to inform the broader field. GHPC is committed to taking meaningful actions and to measure progress towards reaching its overarching research goals.”
In 2022, GHPC took important foundational steps to grow its research outputs and research impact, through actions across three core strategies — developing human resource capacity, supportive infrastructure, and enabling financial resources.
Key 2022 accomplishments included:
- Disseminating findings: In addition to publishing 20 books and peer-reviewed journal articles, the center disseminated its research through 41 podium and poster presentations at state and national conferences, marking a near return to pre-pandemic levels.
- Defining research: The center developed a research definition that both acknowledges the breadth of research GHPC staff participates in, but names traditional peer-reviewed outputs as the target of the Research Strategy Workgroup.
- Financially supporting staff research: The center successfully piloted the inaugural GHPC Research Development Grant Program and made awards to two staff researchers to cover a portion of their time for original research projects
- Expanding research partnerships: The center actively expanded research and collaborative partnerships with a broader array of faculty at Georgia State.
- Enhancing data access: The Research Strategy Workgroup took initial steps to enhancing the center’s data infrastructure capabilities by establishing a centerwide data subgroup, drafting data language for proposal development, and purchasing national datasets for staff’s research use.
- Tracking impact: For the first time GHPC began tracking impact of and engagement with the center’s research outputs using Google Scholar Metrics, which are used for the first time in the 2022 annual progress report.
Efforts in 2023 will focus on expanding research mentoring opportunities, adding supportive language to incorporate research outputs into proposals, and exploring the center’s research-action cycle to identify opportunities for translating existing learnings into peer-reviewed outputs.
For more information GHPC’s 2022 progress, access the progress report here or access the full 2021-2025 Research Strategic Plan here.