Participate in Strategic Planning for the NIH Common Fund

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The NIH is hosting public meetings in Chicago, IL and San Francisco, CA, as part of the strategic planning process for the NIH Common Fund. The meetings are intended to gather input from the broad community on the biggest obstacles to progress in biomedical research or the greatest opportunities in biomedical science that are ripe for exploration.  Input gathered from this meeting will help inform potential new program ideas for the NIH Common Fund.

The public meetings will take place in two locations:

  • May 1, 2012     Chicago, IL
  • May 3, 2012     San Francisco, CA

These meetings are open to all members of the public, but space is limited. A brief application is required to attend. Applications will be accepted through April 6th. To apply, click on the link above for the meeting you would like to attend.

One comment

  1. Many of us do not have the time or funds to attend these conferences, but we would like to have input.

    We do not have time to search every of the myriad functioning mechanisms at NIH that would enhance the chances of the proposal being funding. I propose that the NCF vets proposals and has them simultaneously reviewed under several potential funding mechanisms. It is possible that a proposal would be rated in the fundable range under one mechanism and not another. Much of the review process for applications is arbitrary and depends on chance based on which reviewers are selected. By broadening the review process to include more than one review group, a more accurate picture of the significance and merit of the proposal would emerge. This would also provide a tool for NIH to evaluate whether the current review system is good at selecting the “best” proposals.

    I am not aware of any controlled study that documents that the current NIH review system is superior to alternative review mechanisms. I have been denied funding for a project that is likely to lead to the development of a therapy to cure a fatal neurodegenerative disease while NIH has funded studies on frog mating calls and alcoholism in fruit flies. I am confident that if these studies were balanced against one another, my project would have been funded on the basis that it is likely to have a clear and direct effect on a serious human disease.

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