Family medicine will not close the evidence gap unless we intentionally cultivate clinician-scientists at every career stage. The JABFM Special Issue on research capacity offers a practical blueprint backed by data, tested strategies, and a shared urgency for growing the field’s research footprint.

The Call to Action

Now is the time for department chairs, deans, health systems, and federal funders to work in sync. Research capacity-building must be as intentional as clinical workforce development.

For Departments and Academic Leaders:

• Embed research in training — pair every resident with a mentor; dedicate elective time to inquiry

• Fund protected time — allocate 0.1 FTE for junior faculty; create bridge awards tied to grant applications

• Incentivize mentorship — credit mentoring outcomes in reviews and promotion

• Leverage CTSA assets — plug family medicine into TL1/KL2 programs, biostats, and community engagement cores

• Track outcomes — use metrics (e.g., PACER) to evaluate and refine research support systems

For Health System and Policy Stakeholders:

• Invest in research infrastructure, including PBRN coordination and data platforms

• Advocate for family medicine representation in national research agendas

• Elevate community-based research as essential to implementation and equity science

The Current Gap

“Without structural investment, we risk losing a generation of primary-care researchers.”
 — Pathways to Physician-Scientist Careers (Bennett et al., 2024)

Despite delivering 500 million annual visits in the U.S., family medicine receives just 0.4% of primary care research funding (Etz et al., 2024). 

Structural challenges compound the shortfall:

• <1% of NIH R-series awards go to family medicine PIs (DeVoe et al., 2024)

• Few residencies offer structured physician-scientist pathways (Bennett et al., 2024)

• Faculty cite limited mentorship, inadequate incentives, and weak infrastructure (Carek et al., 2024)

• Family medicine priorities remain underrepresented in CTSA hubs and data-sharing platforms

• Community engagement is often siloed from academic research, limiting real-world impact
  

What We Need

To transform family medicine’s strengths—its community roots, clinical reach, and culture of inquiry—into a national research engine, we need:

1. Proportional Federal Funding
   
   • Secure equitable NIH, AHRQ, PCORI, and CDC funding based on population impact (Etz et al., 2024)
     
     
2. Dedicated National Infrastructure
   • Restore primary care centers of excellence (Bennett et al., 2024)
   • Embed family medicine within CTSA hubs and data-sharing consortia (Westfall et al., 2024)
     
     
3.  A Diverse, Supported Workforce
   • Launch targeted K-awards and flexible FTE models for clinician-researchers (Carek et al., 2024)
   • Build mentoring pipelines that span institutions and disciplines (Clark et al., 2024)
     
     
4. Department-Level Commitment
   • Protect research faculty lines; align promotion criteria with scholarly activity (Etz et al., 2024)
   • Invest in PBRN leadership, data cores, and productivity-tracking tools like PACER (Bennett et al., 2024)

What the Literature Tells Us

“By harnessing the power of curiosity, we can produce generations of family physicians who view practice-based research as routine care.”
 — Culture of Curiosity (Westfall et al., 2024)

“Mentorship is the cornerstone of sustained academic productivity.”
 — Diversity in FM Research (Clark et al., 2024)