Stories of challenges to evaluation over time: CTR evaluator survey results

In a survey of IDeA-CTR clinical and translational research evaluators, challenges to successful evaluation were identified through both quantitative and qualitative responses. The pattern of those challenges follows the inevitable developmental threats to internal evaluations driven by major grants to track and evaluate programs designed to strengthen the development of CTR researchers and the infrastructure to support them. The qualitative responses enhance the quantitative findings to tell a compelling story of both the challenges in translational research evaluation and how evaluators have overcome them, and also add advice for those just setting out on this journey. Drawing on their own previously reported work with internal formative case-study meta-evaluations, the authors provide conclusions from these stories regarding what might go wrong, how to anticipate and how to cope, and how to learn and draw comfort from shared experiences that are both rewarding and challenging.