Our Cancer Biostatistics Shared Resource Facility (C-BSRF) serves as a cost-effective resource for members of the Cancer Center (CC) by offering a diversified balance of financial support plans to accommodate different types of projects and funding levels.

Services Provided for Collaboration (Free of Charge) Supported by CCSG

• Grant Development and Review
• Protocol Development and Review; Interventional (I-IIT) through BDW and Non-Interventional (NI-IIT) and Sponsor Initiated protocol review through PRMC
• Statistical analysis of data directly related to I-IIT
• Educational support with mentoring for K and Young Investigator Awards, seminars and workshops including Biostatistics Analysis Workshop, Biostatistics Seminar Workshop, and Biostatistics Walk-in Clinic 

Financial Model for Services Provided Free of Charge
Grant and protocol development (and review) services are provided free of charge to CC investigators, however the expected arrangement is that when an investigator utilizes these core resources to develop the statistical sections of their grant application, they will provide the statistician(s) that they collaborated with adequate FTE support. The level of support to budget for a biostatistician should be clearly aligned with the scope of the work, and should account for any methodological development, data management and statistical programming that may also be needed for the project. We request that investigators budget at least 10% FTE for statistical support on each grant application

Services Provided for Collaboration Supported by Grants and Contracts

• Statistical analysis of data NOT directly related to I-IIT including NI_IIT and retrospective studies
• Manuscript writing and review
• Preparation for research conferences (e.g. data analysis and pre-conference critiques and presentations)
• Assistance with identification of research gaps in order to initiate research
• Assistance with journal clubs and paper review from a statistical methodology perspective
• Teaching short courses in experimental design and analysis methodology catering to a particular disease system

Financial Models for Other Services Provided

While, the NCI-CCSG subsidizes work on grant and protocol development (and review), financial support for all other statistical services can be arranged through either a fee-for-service or long-term collaboration contract where collaborating academic units pay for statistical support either on an hourly short term basis (fee-for-service) or by funding a percentage of a statistician’s salary over a long-term period (long-term collaboration).

Fee-for-Service Contract

C-BSRF statisticians can be contracted to provide statistical services for CC researchers on a fee-for-service basis. The researcher must be a faculty or staff member currently affiliated with the TCI and must have a funding source with a full accounting unit. The process begins with an initial meeting to discuss the research project, and the scope of the work. If after the meeting, both the researcher and C-BSRF members (statistician and Director) mutually agree that the fee for service model is appropriate, a contract is prepared with a good faith effort made by the C-BSRF statistician to complete the work within a certain number of hours over an allotted time period. Investigators are charged at a subsidized hourly rate of $125; requiring a minimum of eight hours of work. This arrangement is appropriate for investigators with a very limited short-term need for biostatistical collaboration for projects that are not supported by the NCI-CCSG.

Long-term Collaboration Contract

Basic science laboratories or clinical/population health units can use their departmental operational funds to support a percentage(s) of a specific statistician’s (or a team of statistician’s, i.e. Junior/Senior or statisticians with special skill such as proteomic data analysis etc.) salary to collaborate on their ongoing research with matching dollars provided by the NCI-CCSG. Investigators interested in initiating a long-term collaboration contract can email the BSRF managing director to determine an appropriate support level and discuss the terms and process of initiating a collaborative agreement contract. A fund account number and title will be required for internal billing and transfer. This type of collaborative arrangement provides a stable source of funding for biostatisticians fostering development of productive long-term collaborations while motivating related methodological research.

The table below lists the % FTE matching support provided by NCI-CCSG for different levels of incremental % FTE departmental operational support. For example, 1 day/week of a statistician’s effort is allotted when a department provides 15% FTE with 5% matched by NCI-CCSG funds. 2 days/week of a statistician’s effort is allotted when a department provides 30% FTE with 10% matched by NCI-CCSG funds.

Long-term collaboration with matching financial support model

Related Information and Guidelines

The mechanism used to provide support does not alter the collaborative atmosphere that the TCI-BSRF has fostered over the years. The contribution of each person needs to be evaluated as a manuscript is prepared. Consideration for authorship should be based on the accepted criteria for most medical journals. These criteria generally cite both study design and statistical analysis as intellectual input sufficient for authorship. It is impossible to define every situation in advance; however, it should be clear that reimbursement for time does not preclude or replace authorship. Please refer to some helpful guidelines below

• A comparison of models for statistical collaboration
• Guidelines for Submitting Data to Statisticians
• Guidelines for Authorship for Biostatisticians in Medical Papers

All cancer related publications using the statistical services of the TCI-BSRF should acknowledge the NCI-CCSG:

"Research reported in this publication was supported in part by the National Cancer Institute Cancer Center Support Grant P30CA196521 awarded to the Tisch Cancer Institute of the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai and used the Biostatistics Shared Resource Facility. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.”

To request any of the above services please submit a service request form