reflected in the steady growth in applications received each year. While increased volume results in ever higher-quality research being supported, it also presents challenges in meeting the funding demands of the diabetes research community. The Association is committed to meeting these challenges through strong stewardship of its current sup-port, developing innovative new pro-grams to address critical needs, and through careful measurement and frequent adjustments to strategies to maintain direct progress toward goals. Impact assessments will evaluate progress against the following strategic long-term metrics: By 2015 there will be an increase in ADA award recipients who receive subsequent federal funding, an increase in total federal funding for diabetes research, and an increase in ADA research funding. To support these goals, the organization will increase career de-velopment resources for ADA grant recip-ients to better enable them to successfully compete for federal research dollars, will work to attract new talent to the field, and will expand the core research program to support high-quality and innovative basic, clinical, and translational science across the full spectrum of diabetes research. The Association will continue to collect annual data to capture meaningful antecedents of successful attainment of the longer-term goals, including reten-tion and advancement of principal inves-tigators in diabetes research, peer-reviewedpublications, patents, and subsequent fed-eral funding. Using these findings, the ADA research programs can be strength-ened and modified to ensure progress toward the prevention, treatment, and ultimate cure of diabetes. The success of research is critically important to reach the Association’s stra-tegic goals. Meaningful research out-comes have and will continue to advance the field by expediting the identification of those with diabetes before the onset of complications, reducing disparities among those at high risk, ensuring the best clinical care, preventing diabetes-related mortality, and guiding the development and refine-ment of both programmatic and funding strategies.DISSEMINATION OF RESEARCH INFORMATION— Another key requirement for research progress is rapid and broad dissemination of research results throughout the research community and to the public, something the ADA is well placed to accomplish. Each year, the ADA’s annual Scientific Sessions serves as the largest meeting of diabetes researchers and clinicians in the world. The Scientific Sessions is the prime venue for the presentation of cutting-edge clinical diabetes research findings including results from the Diabetes Control and Complica-tions Trial (DCCT), ACCORD, ADVANCE, VADT, Targeting Inflammation using Salsalate for Type-2 Diabetes (TINSAL-T2D), and HAPO trials, just to name a few. For critical or emerging areas of re-search, the Association also hosts consensus conferences and special scientific meetings to gather experts for discussion and de-bate. The outcomes of these meetings are disseminated to the scientific com-munity to identify gaps, guide research priorities, and improve clinical practice. The Diabetes and Cancer consensus con-ference provides an illustrative example of the intent and impact of these meetings. Following the publication of epidemiological data suggesting a potential association between treatments for hyperglycemia and the development of cancer (24–27), the ADA, in collaboration with the American Cancer Society, organized an expert con-ference to review the evidence and develop a comprehensive consensus statement that was subsequently pub-lished in Diabetes Care (28). This state-ment addressed key questions regarding the relationship between diabetes and cancer and highlighted areas where addi-tional research would be required. The ADA was also the forerunner in clinical diabetes guidelines, initiating development in the 1980s—a practice sub-sequently adopted by many other organi-zations representing a wide range of fields within public health. The Association’s flagship clinical practice recommendation, “Standards of Medical Care in Diabetes,” has been revised and published annually for 24 years. Additionally, each year the Association develops and publishes topic-specific position statements; recent examples include diabetes and driving and transitions of care for youth with diabetes. Evidence from basic, clinical, epidemiological, cost-effectiveness, and translational research underpins these clinical practice recom-mendations. Recommendations are rated with an evidence-based grading system that describes the strength of the evidence underlying each recommendation (29).To provide high-quality, peer-reviewed scientific information to the diabetes re-search and medical community, the ADA also publishes four journals, Diabetes, Di-abetes Care, Clinical Diabetes, and Diabetes Spectrum, which cover top clinical and ba-sic research advances. Collectively, in 2011 these journals reached more than 40,000 subscribers in print and generated more than 7.2 million online visits. Diabe-tes and Diabetes Care publish primary re-search findings and have impact factors of 8.9 and 7.1, respectively, making them the highest ranking journals exclusively pub-lishing diabetes research.The ADA scientific and medical re-sources are also disseminated in the com-munity, and patient education materials that the Association develops are distrib-uted through awareness campaigns, com-munity-based programs, and a national call center. The Association has a long history of community-based programs in popula-tions who have the greatest need for sustained support and education. These programs specifically target high-risk ethnic minority communities, nonminority indi-viduals at risk for diabetes, new patients with type 2 diabetes, and youth with type 1 diabetes. Associated resources include community-based education, support groups, health fairs, youth camps, school advocacy, and health communication ma-terials. Research underpins each of these services and informational resources. For example, the recently revised Diabetes Risk Test, a simple but accurate screening tool designed to improve awareness of prediabetes or diabetes risk, is a validated self-assessment tool based on academic researchers’ analyses of data from theNational Health and Nutrition Exami-nation Survey, the premier ongoing study of the nation’s health (30).The evidence supporting the Associ-ation’s clinical practice recommendations and community programs also serves as the foundation of advocacy regarding dis-crimination, health