The curriculum includes educational training in research methods and practical mentored experience in research, including grant writing, study design, data collection and analysis, and the presentation and publication of research results. The faculty includes well-established researchers with NIH and VA funded research programs.

Each fellow will have 12 months protected time for research, spread throughout the three-year fellowship.  During their first year, fellows receive didactic research training, either through the attendance of University of Iowa graduate courses or through travel to an off-site one week intensive research course, depending on fellow needs and interests.  Fellows will be paired with experienced research mentors based on their research interests.  Over the course of the fellowship, fellows focus on the development, implementation, and completion of a research project that will serve as their thesis project. 

Fellows are encouraged to submit abstracts and give research presentations at national meetings during their fellowship.  They are also encouraged to develop grant writing skills and submit a grant proposal (for example to a regional or national foundation) for potential funding to support their research project(s). 

The URPS fellowship faculty has a history of strong involvement in research with many ongoing research programs and projects that may include fellows. Current programs include:

• NIH funded research networks:  Research is ongoing for the NIH/NIDDK-funded MAPP and LURN research networks.  Involvement in these high quality research protocols expose the fellows to multicenter, rigorous clinical and translational research and provides opportunities for proposing ancillary projects in partnership with faculty.
• Randomized trials and other clinical research:  Several single-center URPS clinical protocols are typically active at any time, led by faculty and/or fellows.  Patients are frequently invited to enroll in research protocols related to their care. 
• Pelvic floor disorders research registry (PFDR-R):  University of Iowa was an early site in the AUGS PFDR-R, a registry for patients undergoing surgical or pessary prolapse treatments now in its final year of patient follow up. Fellows can access PFDR-R data from the Iowa site for research purposes and may have the opportunity to propose analyses of aggregate (multi-center) PFDR-R data.