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The University of Colorado Anschutz and its departments conduct cutting-edge research that often requires a statistical understanding and/or support. The Center for Innovative Design and Analysis (CIDA) provides consulting services and builds collaborative partnerships with many of the departments and institutions within the university. CIDA’s consulting services include anything from data management, pre-processing the data, traditional data analysis, grant support such as power analyses and writing statistical analysis plans, to basic consulting services such as helping students in groups with statistical and/or coding questions.

Being part of the university and housed directly on campus creates countless benefits for other University of Colorado departments and institutions. “[CIDA is] familiar with the academic research structure and a lot of the biological variables that [investigators] are interested in because we are familiar with healthcare and we already have that base knowledge,” says Lauren Vanderlinden, MS and Research Instructor with CIDA.

“Working with CIDA vs outsourcing to an off-campus statistical support organization gives you the comfort of working with someone who is on campus and is invested in your projects more so than an external company might be.” 

Working and partnering with CIDA also builds relationships between different departments in the university and creates a collaborative environment that supports learning, research, and development. The biostatisticians on the CIDA team are passionate about consulting and building collaborative partnerships because it allows the opportunity to “[build] a lasting relationship and [feel] like you make some sort of an impact. After a project ends, if [the investigator] needs you again, they can feel welcome to come back” Vanderlinden, CIDA.  

The process of working with CIDA on a consulting agreement or collaboration partnership is as simple as filling out a project request form with your project details and the biostatical needs the investigator is anticipating. Contract sizes can range from an average of 10 hours of work for one-time consulting projects to long-term partnerships at 60% (0.60) FTE. CIDA welcomes all requests and will sit down with the primary investigator to determine what kind of support the center can provide.