PROJECT SUMMARY/ ABSTRACT – ADMINISTRATIVE CORE The goal of the Administrative Core of the Cancer Research and Education to Advance HealTh Equity (CREATE) Partnership is to provide strategic leadership and administrative oversight to advance the overarching goal of the Partnership. This includes providing an efficient infrastructure to support all scientific, administrative, and fiscal activities of the Partnership to ensure effective synergy within and across San Diego State University (SDSU) and the UC San Diego (UCSD) Moores Cancer Center (MCC). Additional goals include developing cancer research opportunities and pathways for undergraduate, graduate, and medical students as well as early-stage investigators (ESIs), which will lead to a future workforce that is more diverse and reflective of the catchment-area population. As a single unit, the Administrative Core provides strategic leadership and administrative oversight to advance Partnership goals. The Core is the glue that keeps the Partnership together, and due to its extensive experience and history, it is able to provide necessary services to support an efficient administrative system and infrastructure under the leadership of multiple Principal Investigators. The Administrative Core is structured so that the Partnership leaders can establish and implement a highly integrated operation that ensures exponential benefit from the collaboration of the two institutions. The Core works synergistically to effectively implement the CREATE Partnership activities in cancer research, research education, early-stage faculty career development, and community outreach. To accomplish Partnership goals, the CREATE leadership proposes the following Specific Aims: 1) Provide leadership, coordination, and management to the scientific, administrative, and fiscal components of the CREATE Partnership. 2) Promote evidence-based and sustainable interactions and build new research collaborations across the Partnership. 3) Procure scientific and strategic feedback and guidance from internal and external advisors. 4) Assist in recruitment of ESIs and work with the Transforming fAcuLty dEvelopmeNT for Equity (TALENT) Shared Resource to support their career development. The AC is positioned to build strong institutional commitment to cancer research and cancer disparities research, while growing the Partnership’s research education programs and increasing outreach to the communities and their providers in the Southern Border Region of California. By the end of this project period, the Partnership intends to grow the cancer research base at SDSU by at least 25% and the number of peer reviewed funded cancer disparities and/or community-engaged grants by at least 20%.