Project Summary – Pilot Core The proposed Pilot Core of Cornell’s Roybal Center–The Translational Research Institute on Pain in Later Life (TRIPLL) will maintain and extend the strategies TRIPLL’s pilot and investigator development program employed over the past 5 years to achieve measurable success. We propose to foster translational research activities on pain in later life that lead to the development of potent and scalable interventions based in the science of behavior change (SOBC) using the NIH Stage Model to guide intervention development and progression along the translational pipeline. Cornell’s Roybal Center will focus its translational research efforts on underrepresented populations, i.e., older adults with cognitive impairment, minority elders, older adults living in rural areas, and adults aging with HIV. This focus is appropriate given the disproportionate impact pain has on these populations. TRIPLL’s Pilot Core will bring together methodological leadership from its Management Core, seminars and educational initiatives to achieve its goals of assuring the continued growth and development of mentees towards research independence, ensuring timely project progress and research integrity, developing potent and scalable behavioral interventions, assuring dissemination of research results to appropriate audiences, developing mentee grantsmanship, and providing continued support well beyond completion of the pilot study. Cornell Roybal Center’s overarching goal is to disseminate behavioral interventions that measurably improve the health and well-being of aging adults adversely affected by pain. In the proposed continuation, the specific aims of Cornell’s Pilot Core are to: 1) Foster interest in and career commitment to translating research on the social and behavioral science of behavior change in the context of later-life pain; 2) Fund innovative pilot studies related to the research theme of the center (Pain Coping and Management), consistent with the NIH Stage Model of Intervention Development and driven by theoretical principles in the Science of Behavior Change; 3) Mentor pilot grantees in conducting translational research, 4) Supervise a program of investigator development in the methods of translational research and provide mentorship in intervention development consistent with the NIH Stage Model, and 5) Develop further the capacity for supporting translational research on behavioral intervention development across collaborating sites. The aims of TRIPLL’s Pilot Core are significant because behavior change interventions will ultimately be more effective if the underlying mechanisms driving behavior change are clearly understood. Finally, TRIPLL pilot studies will leverage new theoretical innovations in the social/behavioral sciences to improve the efficacy, effectiveness, and dissemination of interventions implemented in aging populations adversely affected by pain.