Response to "Metrics of rehabilitation research capacity": within and beyond our borders

This commentary responds to Dr. Allen Heinemann's paper on "Metrics of Rehabilitation Research Capacity." We follow his outline. Because Dr. Heinemann focuses primarily on training capacity, we take a panoramic view addressing the balance between training new researchers and the support of established investigators. We explore challenges, barriers, and solutions to enhancing research capacity in rehabilitation within contexts of the larger scientific enterprise. Our main premise is that the best way to build a strong and sustainable research capacity in the United States is to study and adopt component strategies developed by other medical disciplines and other nations. We propose a model referred to as the "dynamic cycle of research capacity-building" by adapting a framework for studying the eradication of infectious diseases in developing countries to concepts of disability recovery. The concept of career mapping is proposed as a means to measure research productivity among faculty according to "standardized" academic tracks with different balance among research, educational, and clinical activities. The first and most important step in building rehabilitation capacity is developing an understanding of and belief in the mission and the need for research to support it.