2026 SCRS ANZ Key Takeaways

Building Trust: Why Participant Retention Starts Before Day One

Most sites treat retention as a problem to solve once a participant shows signs of disengaging — but by then, the opportunity to prevent it has often already passed. This session reframed retention as a relationship built from the very first recruitment conversation, and gave sites a practical lens for where that relationship actually gets won or lost.

Where Retention Is Actually Won

• At recruitment. Setting realistic expectations on study duration, visit frequency, procedures, and commitment level up front prevents the frustration that drives dropout later.
• In day-to-day rapport. Clinical Trial Coordinators and clinical staff are the central drivers of retention — not through any single process, but through ongoing relationship-building and understanding each participant’s individual motivation for joining.
• In trial design itself. Reducing unnecessary burden, involving sites and patient advocacy groups earlier in protocol development, and pushing for reimbursement that reflects real travel and time costs — particularly for rural participants and carers.
• In the small, consistent touches. Newsletters, completion certificates, comfortable waiting spaces, and real opportunities for feedback all reinforce that a participant is seen and valued.

The Technology Blindspot
Sites and sponsors are increasingly looking to AI to solve retention — but the session pushed back on that framing. AI’s real value is administrative: reducing paperwork and freeing up staff time so more of it goes toward participant-facing engagement. Treating technology as a substitute for human interaction, rather than a support for it, is where sites risk getting this wrong.

Key Takeaways

• Retention is not a single intervention — it’s the cumulative result of trust built consistently across the entire participant journey.
• Expectation-setting at recruitment is a retention strategy, not just an informed-consent formality.
• Site staff relationships remain one of the most influential factors in whether a participant stays enrolled — invest time here deliberately.
• Sites have a legitimate voice in protocol development; use it to advocate for reduced burden and fair participant/carer reimbursement.
• Technology should reduce administrative load, not replace the human element — the two goals aren’t interchangeable, and treating them as such undercuts retention rather than improving it.

Atqiya Aishah
Clinical Trial Coordinator, Emeritus Research

Change Champions: Building Tech Buy-In

Technology is evolving faster than most organizations can comfortably absorb, and clinical research sites are no exception. For many staff, change feels unsettling — and without strong internal support, even the best technology initiatives are likely to fall short. This session focused on how to build the internal momentum needed to make new technology actually stick.

Key Takeaways

Adoption doesn’t happen by accident — it requires clear processes, visible leadership support, and the right people leading the charge. A Change Champion is essential: someone who understands the technology, believes in it, can demonstrate real results, and has credibility with their colleagues. Equally important is leading with WIIFM — “What’s In It For Me” — because addressing staff benefit upfront removes resistance before it builds. And adoption without measurement is just hope; tracking progress is what turns implementation into integration.

What Sites Can Do

Start by acknowledging that staff resistance is often rooted in real past experiences — difficult trainings, failed rollouts, or tools that created more work than they solved. That context matters. Identify and train your Change Champion before go-live, not after. Convert new technology workflows into SOPs so the process becomes standard, not optional. At launch, run live demos, actively gather user feedback, and ensure admin-level users are fully trained in parallel with the rollout.

The Bottom Line

Successful technology implementation rarely happens in isolation — it requires buy-in from sites, CROs, sponsors, and vendors together. The organizations that get this right treat adoption as a people strategy first and a technology strategy second.

Susan Baumohl
Director of Business Development & Strategic Marketing, AMR Clinical

Clinical research is rapidly becoming more digital, decentralized, and AI-assisted — but the factors that determine whether a study succeeds remain deeply human. The future differentiator will not be who has the most sophisticated technology, but who uses technology to create a better experience for patients, investigators, and sponsors. The sites and networks that win will be the ones that make research feel more human while using technology to make execution easier.

Key Takeaways

Technology creates efficiency, but humans create participation. You can automate feasibility, recruitment, startup, and data processes — but you cannot automate patient trust, investigator credibility, or community relationships. AI should remove administrative burden, not clinical thinking. And while technology can scale trials, it is trust that enrolls patients. Activation speed is not the same as site performance.

What Sites Can Do

Protect patient-facing time by automating scheduling reminders and pre-screening workflows, then measure the payoff through retention rates and patient satisfaction. Make the patient experience a formal KPI — add time-to-first-contact, retention, and referral rates alongside the enrollment and revenue metrics you already track. When adopting AI tools, use them for recruiting analytics, contract review, and forecasting — but not as a replacement for investigator oversight or meaningful human interaction.

Wes Bonner
VP Strategic Relationships 

Visibility Is Built, Not Given: Earning Sponsor and CRO Attention

This breakout session brought together three industry experts, Joanne White (Moderna), Tegan Roberts (IQVIA), and Christian (Novo Nordisk), to share practical strategies for helping clinical research sites get noticed by big pharma sponsors and CROs. Facilitated by Tyron Johnson (Lilly), the session paired expert insight with live audience polling.

How Sites Can Build Their Profile

• Get listed where sponsors and CROs actually look: ClinicalTrials.gov, ANZCTR, site registries, and networks like SCRS.
• Leverage your network through referrals, warm introductions, and direct engagement with CRO and sponsor business development teams and MSLs.
• Demonstrate patient access with specific, documented data, not just claims, and build a strong track record on enrollment and data quality.
• Attend the right industry events (the panel named the SCRS Summit as the top venue for site, sponsor, and CRO connection), publish and present to build thought leadership, and respond quickly and thoroughly to feasibility questionnaires.

A recurring theme across the panel: specificity beats assertion. Sponsors want documented proof, not claims.

What the Room Told Us Live polling of site staff, principal investigators, CROs, and sponsors told a consistent story. Word of mouth remains the leading way sites get noticed by a sponsor or CRO, ahead of conferences and proactive outreach. CRO relationships are a mixed bag: 33% of sites describe theirs as strong and established, 42% called theirs developing, and 26% reported reactive or minimal engagement. Asked directly, sponsors and CROs named overpromised enrollment numbers at feasibility as the single biggest red flag, well ahead of screen failure rates or slow enrollment starts. On metrics readiness, 38% of sites have a shareable metrics dashboard, and 32% are still building this capability.

Key Takeaways

• Visibility isn’t passive. It’s built through consistent, documented, and proactive effort.
• Sites that can back up their claims with structured data, real referral networks, and a track record of delivery are the ones that get selected.
• CRO relationships are still developing for many sites, leaving real room to close the gap with sponsor expectations.
• Overpromising on enrollment at feasibility is the fastest way to lose sponsor trust, more damaging than a slow start.
• SCRS’s networks, registries, and events are positioned to help sites close that gap and turn this session’s momentum into action.

Kathy Mickel Vice President, Membership & Engagement, SCRS

When Playbooks Don’t Exist Collaboration in Increasingly Complex Trials

As clinical research pushes further into advanced therapeutics, rare disease studies, paediatric populations, and novel intervention strategies, sites, sponsors, and CROs are increasingly working in territory where established playbooks simply don’t exist yet. This interactive session dug into what that complexity actually looks like on the ground.

Where Complexity Shows Up

• Beyond the protocol. Modern studies bring operational, ethical, regulatory, and workforce challenges that require new approaches from sites, sponsors, CROs, ethics committees, and regulators alike.
• In advanced therapies. Cell and gene therapies, first-in-human studies, and specialised surgical interventions often require stakeholders to develop practical solutions in real time as experience grows.
• In ethics and consent. Rare disease and paediatric trials raise harder questions around informed consent, especially when a trial may represent a patient’s only treatment option, along with assent, long-term follow-up, and transition into adulthood.
• In real-world delivery. Scientific innovation often creates significant operational implications for sites, including specialised staffing, participant management, blinding procedures, and resource planning.

What Sites Can Do

• Engage multidisciplinary stakeholders, including pharmacy, nursing, laboratory, operations, and executive leadership, as early as possible during feasibility and start-up.
• Use Site Initiation Visits and sponsor meetings as collaborative planning opportunities rather than solely information-sharing exercises.
• Assess workforce capability early and identify training needs for emerging therapeutic areas, particularly advanced therapies and paediatric populations.
• Strengthen networks with peer sites, sponsors, CROs, and professional organisations to learn from others’ experiences rather than solving complex challenges in isolation.

Key Takeaways

• Complexity in modern trials extends beyond the protocol, touching operational, ethical, regulatory, and workforce challenges all at once.
• Advanced therapies are creating new learning opportunities across the sector as stakeholders build solutions in real time.
• Ethical considerations grow more important in rare disease and paediatric trials, particularly around consent and long-term follow-up.
• Protocol complexity must be translated into real-world delivery, which means planning for staffing, participant management, and resources early.
• No single stakeholder has all the answers. Success depends on open communication and a willingness to share experience across the community.

Thobe Mthethwa-Pitt National Program Lead, Australian Clinical Trials Education Centre

Patient- Centric Protocols: Finding The Friction Early

Too often, participant burden isn’t identified until patients are already dropping out. This session focused on a more proactive approach — evaluating studies from the patient’s perspective before enrollment begins, so that visit schedules, travel demands, and technology requirements can be assessed and flagged early. Sites that do this well don’t just execute protocols; they help shape them.

Key Takeaways

Protocol dry runs are one of the most underutilized tools in site operations. Walking through each study visit and procedure from start to finish — before a single patient is enrolled — surfaces operational and burden-related issues that a standard protocol review simply won’t catch. The same applies to patient-facing technology: ePROs, mobile apps, and wearables should be tested by site staff before go-live, not by patients during enrollment. Critically, participant burden is not one-size-fits-all — what’s manageable for a rare disease patient may be completely unrealistic for a working adult, elderly patient, or pediatric participant. Sites that understand their specific population’s needs are far better positioned to identify barriers early and provide sponsors with feedback that actually improves the study.

What Sites Can Do

Build a standardized burden assessment checklist into every feasibility review — covering visit frequency, duration, travel requirements, and technology use. Run internal protocol dry runs with coordinators, investigators, and operational staff before startup. Test all patient-facing technologies internally and document usability issues before patients encounter them. Most importantly, develop a formal process for communicating findings back to sponsors with practical, specific recommendations — and continue collecting participant feedback throughout the study to inform future assessments.

The Bottom Line

Many of the recruitment, retention, and compliance challenges sites face throughout a study are predictable — if enough attention is paid to the participant experience during feasibility and startup. As sponsors increasingly seek site input earlier in protocol development, sites that proactively document burden and bring data-driven recommendations to the table will be the ones shaping better studies and delivering stronger results.

Nicole Stiff
Business Development Manager, Revival Research Institute

Inspection Readiness: A 2026 Perspective

Madeleine Yianni
Emeritus Research