DEVELOPMENTAL CORE: ABSTRACT The Developmental Core of the UPSTREAM Research Center will foster innovative and collaborative research related to the impact of cancer prevention and control in communities with persistent poverty. The Core will play a key role in advancing the mission of the Center by stimulating novel research directions toward the upstream fundamental causes of cancer, facilitating transdisciplinary collaboration across Center activities. The Developmental Core will capitalize on the breadth and depth of research expertise at the intersection of poverty and cancer at the three Comprehensive Cancer Centers in Northern California: Stanford, the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF), and the University of California at Davis (UCD). Funded projects will synergize with, and extend the research performed under Projects 1 and 2, and the Research and Methods Core. We propose to fund pilot projects in three complementary research tracks: 1) Supporting community prioritized interventions and projects related to income support and cancer equity, 2) Elucidating mechanisms linking lack of income to drivers of cancer inequities, and 3) Facilitating collaborative transdisciplinary projects between early career scholars, clinicians, and community partners. Funds will be used by investigators and community partners to develop pilot data that will serve as the basis for obtaining subsequent research funding through external peer-reviewed grants. We will work collaboratively with our community partners, the Persistent Poverty Initiative Network, and the Network Steering Committee. Aim 1 of the Core is to administer and support 3 pilot projects per year to catalyze innovative and collaborative research related to the impact of GBI and EITC programs on cancer prevention and control in our selected communities with persistent poverty. Aim 2 of the Core is to build capacity for sustainable bi-directional partnerships between university and community partners to reduce cancer inequalities in persistent poverty areas through community-driven research. The sustainable products of the Developmental Core activities will be the creation of novel avenues for collaborative research on the social determinants of cancer in persistent poverty communities, broad transdisciplinary participation in Center activities, and the career development of pilot project awardees committed to a focus on research in persistent poverty areas of Northern California.