Professional Development Core Project Summary / Abstract. Professional development is a key ingredient for the Montana Clinical and Translational Research Center’s (CTRC) overall goal of building clinical and translational (C&T) research capacity. For Montana C&T researchers, there exists a critical gap in the training and mentorship required to initiate, support, and sustain competitive C&T research and the community populations that they serve. We hypothesize that faculty and practitioners with appropriate training and mentorship support will develop into successful and impactful C&T researchers. The long-term goal of the Professional Development (PD) Core is to have a coordinated training and mentoring resource that is dynamic and continuously informed by the needs of the C&T research workforce. Our objective is to develop a user-informed training and mentorship platform to service the professional development needs of emerging C&T researchers as well as the needs of the other CTRC Cores that support those researchers. We will achieve this objective through three aims. Aim 1: We will conduct needs assessments to identify training and professional development priorities to support C&T research. Aim 2: We will design, promote and deliver trainings, workshops, and other professional development activities for the CTRD research workforce. Aim 3: We will host a formal mentorship program to support both CTRC funded researchers and others in the emerging C&T research workforce.