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Members of the C4R team hosted a panel discussion about rigor training at the Association for Clinical and Translational Science (ACTS) meeting, Translational Science 2025, in Washington D.C. The panel included professors and C4R CoLAB partners Alex Hanlon and Alicia Lozano from Virginia Tech, Michael Gionfriddo from the Mayo Clinic, and C4R’s curriculum development lead, Hao Ye.
Dr. Alex Hanlon, Director of the Center for Biostatistics and Health Data Science at Virginia Tech, shared her thoughts on the panel discussion, the importance of rigor training and the C4R initiative for translational scientists, and how working with C4R has shaped her approach to rigor instruction. Enjoy!
I’ve been thinking a lot about the role of rigor in our work, especially after the session on C4R at Translational Science 2025. The conversations we had during and after the session reminded me just how critical it is to keep rigor at the center of what we do, particularly in translational science. Because at the end of the day, real people are on the other side of this work.
Translational research isn’t just about moving discoveries from bench to bedside. It’s about making those discoveries matter. And for them to matter, they need to be trustworthy, reproducible, and thoughtfully designed from the start. That’s what rigor gives us—a foundation to build on. Without it, we’re not just risking bad science. We’re also risking missed opportunities to improve health and well-being.
Rigor goes beyond clean data or well-specified models. It’s about building trust across teams, institutions, and communities. It’s about knowing that if someone picks up our work and tries to apply it, they won’t just get the same results, they’ll get meaningful, reliable insights they can act on.
And let’s be honest, folks engaged in translational science are often under a lot of pressure to move fast. Whether responding to urgent health challenges or developing tools that can be scaled quickly, the push for speed is real. But without rigor, moving fast doesn’t mean progress. It means we’re building on shaky ground. Rigor slows us down just enough to make sure we’re creating something that is solid, sustainable, and truly impactful.
“But without rigor, moving fast doesn’t mean progress. It means we’re building on shaky ground.”
Working with the Community for Rigor has been eye-opening. Developing content forces you to slow down and really consider how you're communicating, not just what you're trying to say. It’s made me think more deeply about how we define rigor, how we demonstrate its value, and, importantly, how we create space for people to engage with it meaningfully.
One thing that’s become clear is that rigor training isn’t just a checklist or a compliance exercise. It has to be something that people feel connected to. That means we need to be intentional about design and also about creating materials that are engaging, relevant, and reflective of the real-world pressures researchers face. If we want folks to care about rigor, we have to show why it matters in the context of their everyday work and what’s at stake when we cut corners.
This process has reminded me that rigor isn’t only about precision, it’s also about culture. And culture change doesn’t happen overnight. It starts by getting people’s attention, speaking their language, and offering tools that feel doable and valuable. Creating C4R content has pushed me to think more about how we can plant seeds for that culture shift—not just through information, but through inspiration and connection.
The most exciting part is knowing that we’re not just building training modules. We’re also building a movement. And doing it together, in collaboration, makes all the difference.
The response to our C4R session at Translational Science 2025 was energizing and encouraging. People weren’t just listening, they were engaging. Colleagues were curious about how they could incorporate the C4R materials into their own work, and several stayed after to ask questions and brainstorm ways to bring this effort into their institutions.
One colleague in particular really wanted to understand how we pulled it all together—how we managed to create content that was both scientifically sound and visually engaging. She and another colleague are working on an NIH R25 project to develop educational materials for training collaborative statisticians as another free, shared resource. But they’ve been having a hard time getting collaborators to commit to making the training materials sophisticated and appealing, not just technically correct.
“One colleague in particular really wanted to understand how we pulled it all together—how we managed to create content that was both scientifically sound and visually engaging.”
What seemed to resonate most was not just the materials we presented, but the collaborative nature of how they came together. I think that’s what folks are hungry for—content that reflects real teamwork, deep care for the learner, and a commitment to raising the bar for how we approach rigor training.
One of the things I’ve loved most about our work with C4R is how collaborative it’s been—with the coordinating team at UPenn team, the NIH/NINDS team, and the subject matter experts from other universities. Creating the educational units together has been a reminder that rigor isn’t a solitary pursuit. It’s strengthened when we build together, when we ask hard questions, share what we’ve learned, and push each other to do better. It’s been incredibly rewarding to hear that others are inspired not only by the content, but also by the process behind it.
