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My office, the Office of Extramural Research (OER), works closely with the extramural research community to support NIH’s mission of funding science that will enhance our knowledge of living systems, improve health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. While frequent readers of Rock Talk may be familiar with OER 
through the topics I blog about, there is much, much more that my office provides in support of NIH’s extramural program as a whole.
OER provides the leadership, oversight, tools, and guidance needed to administer and manage NIH extramural research policy and operations. Our work includes the development of online information and administration systems (two public-facing systems you likely know of include eRA Commons and RePORT), the development, evaluation and implementation of new programs and policies, the establishment of partnerships with other federal agencies in support of scientific research, and the oversight of compliance with regulations necessary for the stewardship of taxpayer dollars that support biomedical research.
Our 2013-2014 report provides a window into the wide-ranging activities supported by our team – take a look if you’d like to learn more!
I see that the matter of collecting data on benefits of postdocs, particularly fellows, has been excluded from this document in the section describing the implementation of the recommendations from the biomedical workforce. Given that the NIH has failed to offer any sort of timeline on completion of this effort and provide any subsequent policy changes, is it fair for me to assume that the NIH swept this effort under the rug? If this is not the case, and the NIH is still indeed working on this issue, then could the NIH please just provide the research community a timeline on completion of this project. It should not take 3 years to launch a survey and analyze results, particularly when an outside evaluation firm is being used in the process. If the NIH had funded a research project grant to conduct a similar survey, the results would be published by now or the grantee would likely not have their funding renewed.