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Biostatistics, Epidemiology, and Research Design (BERD)

BERD Overview

Thank you for your interest in working with the UTSW Clinical and Translational Science Award (CTSA) Research Methods Team. Our mission is to support and collaborate with scholars on methods used in translational research and science, spanning from study design to data management, analytic methods, and results interpretation.

To fulfill this mission, we collaborate with and complement other groups across campus to provide investigators with research methods and analytic support. Our team of faculty and staff can work with scholars and teams throughout the life cycle of study development and execution. Examples of work in these domains:

  • defining hypotheses and endpoints
  • developing study protocols
  • assisting with grant applications
  • calculating sample sizes
  • setting up study databases
  • converting raw data into analytic sets
  • conducting analysis & preparing reports
  • calculating sample sizes
  • interpreting results
  • assisting with dissemination products

Overall, our goal is to cultivate a collaborative environment and establish relationships that will lead to successful funding, research, and dissemination.

BERD Policies

  • To help our team track our work, we ask all requesters to complete the form even if they have worked with our team in the past (prior to the creation of the form), or even if they connect with our team via other means (e.g., an email introduction).
  • We ask that all trainees (medical students and residents) have a faculty mentor present at all consultations. Ideally, this would be the PI on the project.
  • We provide these gratis services in anticipation that in most cases, 3-5 hours will enable us to either address requesters’ needs or identify that a longer engagement – and associated funding – would be needed to do so.
  • We cannot always guarantee that we will have faculty available to begin projects immediately, so please plan accordingly and submit your requests as soon as possible to allow time enough for the project to be completed before any deadlines you may have.
  • Initial Consultation. We provide UTSW faculty and affiliated investigators 3-5 hours of consultation and services free-of-charge. Example activities during this initial phase include assessing investigator needs, discussing scope of work, and providing information about available supports and expertise.
  • Longitudinal Support. In collaboration with offices and groups at UT Southwestern, additional longitudinal, structured supports are offered to scholars participating in institutional programs (e.g., KL2 Scholars Program, Dean’s Clinical Scholars Program) and offerings (e.g., K or R grant writing workshops).
  • Referral or deferral.When appropriate, we may refer you to other groups on campus who may be better suited to collaborate with you on your research. In some cases, we may suggest a deferred timeline on your request given queue and bandwidth considerations. In all cases, our goal is to meet requesters’ needs as best as possible and leverage expertise from the wider research community at UT Southwestern.

Additional guidance relevant to few types of assistance requests (grant proposals and manuscript assistance) is provided below.

Grant Proposals

Lead Time.While there is no absolute rule for lead time required for preparing a statistical analysis plans, ideally Core E team members would have two to three months to assist with grant preparation.

Final Review.Core E faculty assisting with grant preparation should review the final version of analysis plan before grant submission for review of science (consistency and relevance of design) and budget.

Grant Effort.We believe research works best when statisticians involved in writing the analysis plan also participate in conducting analyses when the time comes. This is also the most effective way to foster a collaborative research partnership with you and your work as it grows.

We anticipate that when Core E faculty and staff help prepare and write grant applications, they will be invited to join (as co-investigator or statistical analyst, respectively) with % effort, as appropriate for the grant type. This approach is also intended to support the soundness of statistical plan and increase the likelihood of funding.

Manuscript Assistance

Authorship.We are enthusiastic about assisting investigators with manuscript preparation and dissemination. In these activities, we follow guidance from the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, which defines three criteria for authorship:

  • significant contribution to the conception, design, execution, and/or analysis and interpretation of data
  • participation in drafting, reviewing, and/or revising the manuscript for intellectual content
  • approval of the manuscript to be published

This approach means that the nature of contribution, not the amount of time spent on contribution, determines authorship; it also assumes that research methods team members will be given the opportunity to contribute in ways that confer authorship. To facilitate planning and avoid misunderstandings, please discuss authorship as early as possible with Core E team members assisting with manuscript preparation and dissemination.

Acknowledgement. We ask that investigators using CTSA faculty and staff for manuscript preparation or assistance activities recognize this support in the “acknowledgements” section of their manuscript. We suggest including the following text:

The authors thank the UT Southwestern Research Methods team (supported by the (UL1TR003163) for statistical and data analysis expertise.

Getting Started with BERD

Engaging with our team begins with completion of an initial intake form. The more details you provide on your specific needs, the better we will be able to engage with your research. In this form, you will have an opportunity to denote the types of assistance you are requesting.

We will reach out with next steps once we have reviewed your intake form. Sometimes, the information in the intake form is insufficient for us to determine the next steps. In these cases, we will reach out to request additional information that would help us fully review your request.

BERD Intake Form

Please BERD@utsouthwestern.edu us at BERD@utsouthwestern.edu with any questions.

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