The future of the regional training centres: planning for sustainability.

The main objective of the Regional Training Centres (RTCs) is to produce well qualified personnel within the fields of health services and nursing research. Through their collaborative efforts, each of the RTCs has created opportunities for conceptual and methodological competency, knowledge synthesis and knowledge translation and exchange for graduate students, as well as for community-based decision-makers across a variety of areas in applied health and nursing services research. Now, the RTCs face the challenge of envisioning their future. The task is not merely to describe what is, nor what will be, but rather to envision what could be. The purpose of this paper is to describe a plan for sustainability, not only financially but also with respect to management of human resources, student development and collaboration among the partners who make up the collective that is a Regional Training Centre.