Why Properly Acknowledging NIH Support in Your Paper is Important

April 19, 2021

Imagine this scenario. In the hustle to publish a paper, you accidentally forgot to cite the underlying NIH support. Or, the opposite, you opt to include that other grant in the acknowledgements that did not have anything to do with the work. No problem, right?

Well, it could be. Accurately and precisely acknowledging NIH funding allows us to properly assess award outputs and make recommendations for future research directions. It is also a term and condition of award outlined in the NIH Grants Policy Statement. Since the Stevens Amendment passed in 1989, recipients have been required to acknowledge federal funding when publicly communicating projects or programs funded with HHS funds.

The NIH SABV Policy: E-learning Opportunities and a Symposium Provide Guidance and Inspiration

April 12, 2021

Interest in sex and gender in research—and resources to help investigators—is growing. In the 5 years since NIH enacted its pioneering Policy on Sex as a Biological Variable (SABV) (see our progress report here), there has been a lot of activity, including increased attention on sex differences and influences and many questions and requests for assistance. I’m pleased to announce the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) has issued two new courses, Sex as a Biological Variable: A Primer and Bench to Bedside: Integrating Sex and Gender to Improve Human Health, to our suite of free e-learning offerings.

How Are Schools and Departments Assigned to NIH Grants?

April 9, 2021

For decades, NIH has collected and curated information on the schools and departments associated with the grants awarded to domestic higher education academic institutions to provide statistics on the fields contributing to advances in biomedical research. This information appears in NIH RePORTER (Figure 1), NIH Awards by Location and Organization, and other reports issued by NIH. To facilitate uniform reporting, NIH aligns the schools and department names used by institutions to standard lists of school types and department types.

Reminder: NIH Will Continue to Accept Preliminary Data as Post-Submission Material Through January 2022 Council

April 6, 2021

In recognition of the fact that COVID-19 may still be adversely affecting the ability of applicants to generate preliminary data, NIH will continue to accept a one-page update with preliminary data as post-submission materials for applications submitted for the January 2022 Council (beginning with applications submitted for the May 25, 2021 due date for Fall 2021 review meetings), ONLY if the Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) used for submission allowed preliminary data in the application.

2021 HHS Small Business Program Conference: Diverse Perspectives SEEDing Impactful Innovations

March 31, 2021

We are working to identify ways to lower barriers for all new applicants to the NIH SBIR and STTR programs. Conferences have the ability to bring people together expressly to share perspectives and exchange expertise, including the lessons of personal experience. That is why I am pleased to announce as a first step in addressing these concerns we will be sponsoring the 2021 HHS Small Business Program Conference with the theme “Diverse Perspectives SEEDing Impactful Innovations.” The meeting will take place virtually April 26-30 and registration is free.

The Impact of the COVID-19 Pandemic on the Extramural Scientific Workforce – Outcomes from an NIH-Led Survey

March 25, 2021

At NIH, we recognized the many ways the COVID-19 pandemic could adversely affect the biomedical workforce, particularly members of underrepresented groups and vulnerable populations. In October 2020, NIH fielded two online surveys to objectively document COVID-19’s impact on extramural research. One survey assessed the perspective of individual research administration leaders at extramural institutions, and the other survey assessed the perspective of the researchers themselves. In this post, we offer a high-level overview of general trends noted within both surveys.