Collaboration

CRN members participate in interest groups and meetings to foster collaborations, share preliminary research progress, and engage young investigators from the network. From 2021 to 2024, 22 scientific and technical interest group tracks were established to provide avenues for discussing and addressing critical topics from functional genomics, disease modeling, and circuit physiology to neuro-immune interactions.

The interest groups have proven to be a valuable mechanism for promoting innovation, professional growth, and inter-team collaboration within the CRN.

From 2021 to 2024, ASAP established 15 working groups to align protocols, harmonize datasets, and tackle shared challenges. Working groups were formed organically during virtual interest group meeting calls, in-person annual meetings, or through suggestions by ASAP staff. Each working group focused on identifying bottlenecks, setting goals, and delivering actionable outputs.

These working groups have been instrumental in driving progress by aligning efforts across the CRN, fostering collaborations, and generating impactful resources for the broader PD research community.

The Celebration of Scientific Achievement (COSA) is a biennial, multi-day virtual poster session organized for the ASAP CRN to support and engage researchers without independent labs. COSA fosters collaboration and idea-sharing across these career levels while providing these researchers with a platform to present their work, regardless of its maturity, and receive feedback on their work from opinion leaders/principal investigators in the CRN.

COSA has:

• Encouraged the cross-fertilization of ideas across research levels and time zones. Survey feedback highlights COSA’s effectiveness in engaging trainees and informing the network on emerging research.

• Provided trainees with professional development opportunities to present their work and promote their visibility within the PD research community.

In-person gatherings are an important platform for advancing PD research by sharing the latest findings, fostering collaborations, and addressing critical research gaps. These gatherings bring together principal investigators, project managers, and, biennially, trainees from the 35 CRN teams, along with external guests and funders, to promote knowledge exchange and innovation.

These events have achieved significant results:

• On average, 77% of respondents note that they plan to reshape their research plan based on meeting discussions, as indicated by post-meeting surveys. These meetings also resulted in the creation of new interest groups and working groups

• On average, 94% of respondents highlight satisfaction with the networking opportunities, with 91% of attendees highlighting a new potential collaboration identified.