Coalition for National Trauma Research

The Coalition for National Trauma Research (CNTR) is a 501(c)3 nonprofit corporation based in San Antonio, Texas. CNTR was first established in 2014 by a group of trauma community leaders from the National Trauma Institute, American Association for Surgery of Trauma, Eastern Association for Surgery of Trauma, Western Trauma Association and the ACS Committee on Trauma.

CNTR’s first efforts were directed toward advocacy for federal trauma research funding. To that end, CNTR organized teams of trauma surgeons to meet with dozens of federal legislators and make a single, unified request: to appropriate $10M per year for use by clinical trauma investigators. Over three years, CNTR’s advocacy efforts helped to secure $30M in appropriated funding, now delivered to clinical trauma investigators through the LITES program, managed by the Department of Defense.

To further consolidate efforts, the National Trauma Institute (NTI) changed its name to CNTR in early 2020. CNTR invites representation from trauma- and emergency medicine-related specialties such as neurotrauma, orthopedic trauma, emergency medicine, burns, pediatric trauma, military medicine, trauma nurses and other stakeholder groups. CNTR now has three membership levels: Core, Stakeholder, and Affiliate.