2025 SCRS Global Site Solutions Summit Recap: Moving to True Partnerships

Welcome to this special recap of this year’s SCRS Global Site Solutions Summit, where industry leaders gathered to share insights on strengthening collaboration between sponsors, CROs, and sites. The conversations centered on one theme: moving beyond communication to true partnership.

Jimmy Bechtel, chief site success officer, SCRS, emphasized how collaboration has become the next evolution of communication within clinical research.

Bechtel: We've talked a lot about how important communication and collaboration are. We've moved from this era where, “We need to communicate. We need to communicate,” it's the dead horse, if you will, to this era of how important collaboration and how you take communication to the next level and actually work in concert, in partnership with industry insights.

Next, Christine Senn, PhD, SVP, site-sponsor innovation, Advarra, highlighted one of the biggest operational pain points for sites—redundancy in feasibility processes—and where opportunities for improvement lie.

Senn: Collaboration with sites, I think, could really be helped in a lot of ways, if people realized where the redundancies lie. I'm not always sure that that's aware. I was in a panel earlier today, listening to the panel, and they were talking that sometimes sponsors don't even know that CROs send out preliminary feasibility questionnaires to the sites, so sites are doing these multiple times—maybe for the same trial with three or four different CRO possibilities—as they're trying to get the job, and sponsors aren't even aware of that one. I'm not really sure how to cut that out, but I think that there's an opportunity there.

Finally, Robin Douglas, VP, research site engagement, Medidata, underscored the importance of engaging site staff early in the planning process to reduce friction and build stronger partnerships.

Douglas: First and foremost, I think the industry needs to continue to treat their site staff as true partners and not just end users, so invite them into the conversation early. It helps, I think our sponsors and our CROs understand where there may be friction with their operations and can avoid a lot of rework and challenges if they're able to come into the discussion early.

Additionally, we attended several educational sessions which highlighted key areas such as scaling sites for sustainable growth, enhancing community engagement, and navigating sites mergers and acquisitions.

To view our full coverage of the Summit, including the video clips and session recaps, visit the conference coverage section of our website. Thanks for tuning in.