Building and Sustaining Scholarly Communities in Health Professions Education: Lessons from U.S. Academies

Participants and Recruitment

We collected data from February to June 2025 using purposive sampling, informed by the author team’s knowledge of individuals directing HPE academies and related structures, and further strengthened through snowball sampling. Inclusion criteria required that participants direct an academy or analogous institutional structure and have experience building and sustaining educational scholarship in their local context. Because the project was originally intended to inform the development of a local academy within a U.S. medical school, we intentionally focused recruitment on leaders at U.S. institutions. This decision reflected the importance of contextual alignment: funding models, faculty roles, promotion expectations, and organizational structures vary across international HPE systems, and we sought to maximize the practical utility of the findings for the setting in which the initiative was being developed. Within this U.S. sampling frame, we attended to institutional characteristics, including geographic region and public or private status, to achieve a balanced representation of perspectives.

Sample size was guided by the concept of information power rather than saturation [21, 22]. In this more contemporary conceptualization, sample adequacy was assessed using several criteria, including the specificity of the sample, the focus of the study aim, the quality and depth of interviews, and the extent to which the data provided sufficient richness and variation to support a credible thematic analysis [21, 22]. Given our focused aims, we estimated that a total of 20 interviews would be needed to achieve appropriate information power. After each interview, the team evaluated the quality of the data obtained, the range of perspectives included, and whether additional data might contribute new insights to the study aims.

In total, we interviewed 21 academy leaders from across the four geographic regions of the U.S. (central, northeast, southern, and western), as defined by the Group on Educational Affairs, Association of American Medical Colleges (see Table 1). The sample was predominantly women (81.0%), and participants were almost evenly distributed between public (52.4%) and private (47.6%) institutions; most participants held the rank of full professor (61.9%).

Ethics Statement

Ethical approval was granted by the George Washington University Office of Human Research. Prior to conducting each interview, participants received an overview of the project, and the interviews were conducted with attention to participant confidentiality and respect.

Data Collection

We developed a semi-structured interview guide, informed by the CoP framework [18, 19], to explore participants’ experiences with building and sustaining scholarly communities of practice in HPE. The interview guide included open-ended questions organized around the three CoP dimensions of domain (shared areas of interest), community (relationships among members), and practice (shared tools and resources). Each dimension was mapped to specific questions and probes, and the interview guide was designed to elicit detailed accounts of how leaders develop, support, and sustain educational scholarship (see Supplemental Material).

All interviews were conducted virtually by two members of the author team (ARA and ZZ) via Zoom and lasted approximately 45–60 minutes. Demographic information was collected prior to the interviews, which were recorded and transcribed using Otter.ai, an automated, cloud-based transcription platform that uses speech recognition technology to convert spoken audio into text. Before analysis, the research team reviewed the transcripts for accuracy and completeness, made minor clarifying edits, and removed identifying information.

Data Analysis

The de-identified transcripts were uploaded into Dedoose Version 10.0.59 (SocioCultural Research Consultants, LLC, 2023), a secure online qualitative analysis platform. For analysis, we followed Braun and Clarke’s six-phase thematic analysis process to identify patterns across the dataset [23]. In the first phase, we familiarized ourselves with the data by repeatedly reading transcripts and noting initial ideas. The second phase involved inductive open coding of transcripts, identifying features of the data that appeared meaningful in relation to the study aims, with the theoretical framework serving as a lens. The team met six times to complete the coding process. Each transcript was independently coded by two team members, and coding discrepancies were resolved through discussion during regular team meetings.

During the third phase, codes were collated into potential themes by examining how different codes combined to form overarching patterns. The fourth phase involved reviewing themes at two levels: checking that the coded extracts formed a coherent pattern within each theme and assessing whether the themes accurately reflected the meanings evident in the dataset as a whole. In the fifth phase, themes were defined and named, with ongoing analysis to refine each theme’s specifics and generate clear definitions. The final phase involved selecting compelling examples and relating the analysis back to the study aims and extant literature.

Using iterative collaborative analysis, all members of the research team reviewed, refined, and consolidated codes into themes, ensuring a comprehensive interpretation that captured the nuanced experiences of study participants. This collaborative approach enhanced the trustworthiness of findings through ongoing reflexive dialogue about analytic decisions.

Reflexivity

The research team included clinicians and PhD-trained educators from diverse professional backgrounds (e.g., education researchers, clinician-educators, a basic scientist, and a recent medical school graduate). Team members engaged in explicit reflexive dialogue through virtual meetings and email exchanges to surface assumptions about the purpose and functions of academies, as well as their own experiences with HPE scholarship. Two authors (ARA and ZZ) co-direct the Academy of Education Scholars at the George Washington University School of Medicine and Health Sciences, roles that informed their familiarity with academy structures and practices. Throughout the analysis, we reflected on how our professional roles and positionality informed interpretation.

Theme 1: Building Foundations That Legitimize Educational Scholarship

Participants described foundation-building as the work of translating educational scholarship from an individual interest or honorific identity into a legitimate institutional domain. Across sites, this required more than creating programs; it required visible leadership support, dedicated resources, succession planning, shared values, and organizing frameworks that gave educational scholarship structure and continuity. Several participants described programs that emerged from identified institutional needs or from efforts to relaunch initiatives that had become dormant or primarily symbolic. As one participant explained,

Recognizing the limitations of purely honorific structures, leaders described relaunching programs around active scholarly engagement. The need for “succession planning” (P8) was also identified as critical, with participants noting that leadership transitions without clear succession strategies led to periods of institutional dormancy and instability. Relatedly, participants emphasized the importance of shared leadership, particularly in the form of co-director dyads. One participant reflected, “I could not have done any of this myself,” adding that the answer was not necessarily “having a committee,” but rather having “at least one other person” who either sees the world similarly or complements one’s vision in ways that allow leaders “to really build something that’s going to have broad appeal” (P2).

Institutional support emerged as another way leaders established educational scholarship as legitimate and durable, rather than peripheral or dependent on individual enthusiasm. One participant articulated the comprehensive nature of this investment,

Leadership buy-in at the highest levels was also deemed essential, with participants emphasizing the need for deans and vice deans to provide not just financial resources but also administrative support, protected time, and institutional positioning. A participant described receiving a “blank sheet of paper” (P13) from institutional leaders (i.e., a blank check or blank slate), signifying both trust and a mandate to build their program from the ground up.

Participants described how guiding frameworks and core values gave programs coherence. They referenced models such as “Kirkpatrick” (P19) for evaluation, as well as institutional frameworks (P8) for organizing educational domains. The diversity of approaches was captured by one participant’s observation that “if you see one academy, you see one academy” (P19), underscoring the need for contextual adaptation while maintaining theoretical grounding. Programs were organized around clear missions, typically encompassing “faculty development,” “recognition,” and “research” (P13), and around core values such as “excellence,” “support,” and “generosity” (P1). Tiered membership structures, ranging from “associate member” to “distinguished educator” (P9), created pathways for progressive engagement and also helped to align recognition with institutional promotion processes. Together, these structures, values, and frameworks helped define the domain of educational scholarship and signal that it counted within the institution.

Theme 2: Cultivating Scholarly Sanctuary to Counter Isolation

Participants described sustainable scholarly communities as relational spaces that countered isolation and made educational scholarship feel safe, shared, and possible. In this sense, sanctuary was not simply collegiality; it was a deliberate leadership strategy for lowering status barriers, supporting unfinished scholarly work, and helping educators learn across disciplinary boundaries. The “community of practice” was a core organizing principle, with participants describing how these communities combat the isolation inherent in educational scholarship. One participant reflected: “I think that one should never be doing research alone (except as part of a dissertation process)… it’s so isolating doing this stuff independently, having a community of practice makes all the difference” (P19). Programs prioritized “community building” (P8) through multiple mechanisms, including regular gatherings, conference support, and informal networks of “champions and ambassadors” (P8) embedded within departments.

Psychological safety emerged as essential for meaningful participation, particularly given the interdisciplinary nature of educational scholarship. One participant explained the intentional cultivation of safe spaces,

The value of “authenticity” (P19) was also emphasized, with leaders modeling vulnerability to encourage participants to “drop their guard” (P19) and engage openly with educational works in progress.

Participants described building inclusive community-oriented structures. One participant described their initial resistance to the idea of an academy, explaining, “I didn’t want an academy because I felt like academies can be exclusive as opposed to inclusive” (P7). This concern shifted as the academy took shape as an intentionally inclusive structure. Programs emphasized being “built by the members, for the members” (P21), with governance structures that prioritized bottom-up rather than top-down approaches. This inclusive orientation extended to diverse audiences, with programs serving “MDs,” “PAs,” and “PhDs” (P12), and hosting events open to the broader institutional community. Some programs strategically focused on “niche” communities of committed scholars (P1), while others cast wider nets to maximize engagement, reflecting varied approaches to balancing depth and breadth of community building. The cultivation of a “culture of scholarship” (P8) where “everything we do, we do in a scholarly way” (P8) represented the aspirational endpoint for many of these community-building efforts.

Theme 3: Making Scholarship Feasible Under Constraints

Participants emphasized that they were rarely able to completely eliminate the structural barriers facing educational scholars. Instead, they made scholarship more feasible by designing low-barrier entry points, translating educational scholarship into institutionally legible value, and creating pragmatic supports that allowed scholarly work to continue under pressure. Lack of time and clinical pressures emerged as the most pervasive challenges, with one participant stating simply: “I think the biggest challenge is time because everybody’s competing against a very busy clinical faculty’s time” (P12). The dominance of clinical productivity metrics created structural barriers, as participants noted that “clinical RVUs” (P12) drive compensation while “education’s always the first to go” (P12) when resources become constrained. The broader healthcare environment intensified these pressures, with one participant observing that “it’s all about production. It’s all about clinical revenue” (P11), creating an institutional context where educational scholarship struggles to gain recognition and prominence.

In response to these constraints, participants described a range of pragmatic, adaptive solutions designed to work within, rather than against, existing institutional realities. Several leaders intentionally created low-barrier scholarly entry points that minimized preparation demands while fostering connection and momentum. For example, one participant described hosting recurring discussion circles built around short blog posts, emphasizing that “you don’t have to do any pre-work. You show up, I give you lunch, and then we read the blog post… we do it all in an hour” (P7). These sessions were co-facilitated by faculty and trainees from diverse roles, making educational scholarship feel “more approachable to others who might want to know about it” (P7) while respecting intense clinical schedules.

Participants also described strategies to counter fragmented scholarly support and disciplinary silos. These silos mattered because they left educators with project ideas but without stable communities, methodological support, or shared ownership needed to carry projects forward. One leader detailed the evolution of “mentorship circles” (P6) that intentionally moved faculty from isolated, project-specific interests toward shared scholarly work. After months of difficulty encouraging collaboration, this leader formalized a small, topic-focused “lab,” explaining: “I’m making you all members of the lab, and we’re going to meet on a regular basis” (P6). By structuring recurring interaction and shared ownership, participants reframed mentorship as a collective, relational process rather than an individualized resource.

Participants noted that infrastructure gaps compounded time constraints. These gaps were not limited to staffing or administrative support; they also included a lack of shared language, methodological scaffolding, and institutional understanding of why educational scholarship mattered. They described the challenge of helping colleagues understand “what is researchable” (P4) and the exhausting reality of “building a house every single time” (P4) without established research programs to scaffold new scholars’ work. One leader reflected on persistent skepticism: “People would just raise the question, well, why do we even need this? We need teachers, yes, but we don’t really need people who study teaching” (P2). This lack of understanding of the importance of educational scholarship extended to institutional leadership. In response, several leaders emphasized the importance of advocacy and translation: developing “compelling reports” (P18) and narratives that resonated with institutional leaders unfamiliar with educational scholarship.

Despite the range of pragmatic, adaptive solutions described above, protected time for scholarship remained elusive for most participants. One senior faculty member reflected,

Leaders’ own experiences with unfunded scholarship shaped how they designed supports for others facing similar constraints. Rather than viewing administrative work as separate from scholarship, some participants strategically leveraged these roles to create flexibility, visibility, and advocacy capacity, positioning themselves to protect and legitimize educational work within institutional decision-making structures. In addition, because buying out faculty time was costly, especially clinician time, one participant instead used funds to “pull in extenders” (P6): individuals who assisted faculty with research tasks such as literature searching and statistical analysis.

Notwithstanding these constraints, participants demonstrated persistence, with one noting, “It takes energy to keep pushing education scholarship to the forefront” (P21), acknowledging both the weight of barriers and the resolve required to overcome them.

Theme 4: Tending Growth Through Layered, Incremental Development

Participants described growth as a gradual process of layering opportunities over time rather than scaling rapidly. This deliberate, incremental approach mattered because leaders were trying to expand scholarly capacity without overwhelming faculty, diluting expertise, or outstripping available resources. Several participants cautioned against growing academies “too big too fast” (P12) or becoming “too broad” (P13) before developing focused expertise. In this context, flexible participation was not simply a convenience but a strategy for sustaining engagement over time. One leader explained,

Many programs were developed over extended timeframes, with one participant noting a “10-year establishment” (P21) period before achieving stability. Capacity-building, rather than one-time programming, was central to this growth. Leaders noted that education and training in educational research methods and theory were essential, despite common misconceptions. As one participant noted: “It does take expertise to do education scholarship, even though there’s a fair number of people who think anyone can do it” (P8). Programs developed diverse educational offerings, including monthly “brown bag” sessions with “theory corner” discussions and “works in progress presentations” (P8), leadership development programs for “mid-career educators” (P13), and structured mentoring initiatives. Mentoring models varied, with some emphasizing departmental approaches where “senior faculty or mid-career faculty working with a junior faculty on a project together” proved most effective (P12), while others created “mentoring pods” (P19) to connect scholars with similar interests into collaborative groups. These offerings served as growth infrastructure, helping participants move from interest to shared scholarly practice.

Program leaders balanced structured curricula with responsive consultation services. One participant articulated this layered approach,

The meeting formats used by various leaders evolved to accommodate geographic dispersion, with programs using “blended virtual/in-person” approaches (P21) and responsive scheduling. Leaders maintained visions for sustainable growth, including incorporating program “graduates as mentors for the next generation” (P16) and establishing endowed resources to “crystallize” programming ideas (P8).

Theme 5: Making Educational Scholarship Visible and Valued

Participants described visibility as essential to sustainability. Recognition, grants, dissemination platforms, promotion signals, and outcome tracking did more than showcase accomplishments; they translated educational scholarship into forms of institutional value. Internal (or intramural) grant programs were described as crucial for amplifying educational research and innovation projects, providing necessary seed funding. Some institutions described small awards ranging from “$4,000 to $5,000 small grants” (P14) for specific administrative needs, while others discussed substantial “$100,000” annual programs (P16). One participant explained,

Travel grants supported conference attendance for “emerging scholars” (P21), while aspire grants provided targeted support for “biostatistics, executive coaching,” and “editorial support” (P13).

Some programs made educational scholarship visible by creating platforms for dissemination at multiple levels. Institutional events like “annual teaching and learning symposiums” (P17) and “educational scholarship days” (P21) showcased faculty work, while writing camps produced tangible outputs, with one program yielding “five publications from that group after a course of six weeks” (P13). External opportunities expanded reach, with some programs facilitating placements in prestigious fellowships such as “Harvard Macy” (P20) through institutional vetting processes. Leaders recognized the importance of making scholarship “real” by connecting it to “quality improvement” and “patient care” (P13), demonstrating the tangible impact of educational scholarship beyond peer-reviewed publications.

Outcome tracking provided another form of visibility by making educational scholarship legible to institutional audiences who might otherwise overlook it. Tracking and reporting outcomes helped demonstrate value, guide program development, and make educational scholarship more visible. Participants described systems for monitoring “50–60% participation rates” (P21), publications, presentations, and attainment of leadership roles. The connection between academy membership and promotion emerged as particularly significant: “When the promotions committee sees that someone is a member of the teaching academy, the conversation kind of pauses like, oh, well, their education credentials have already been vetted by the academy… that means something” (P9). Programs cultivated broader visibility through institutional newsletters (P6) and social media engagement. One participant noted that an article had “20,000 views,” which counted toward promotion (P13), and another described monthly blog posts authored by “faculty, staff, and trainees” (P7). Participants described advocacy efforts on institutional committees (P13), “road show presentations” (P3) about scholarly approaches to teaching, and rehearsal sessions before conferences (P8). Through these varied mechanisms, programs worked to establish educational scholarship as visible, valued, and viable within their institutions.