Many of you may have seen the recent Nature Commentary by NIH Director Francis Collins and NIH Deputy Director Larry Tabak that talks about how NIH is addressing concerns about reproducibility in science. If you haven’t I’d encourage you to take a look. ….
Since the last time I’ve written about our small business research programs, there have been a lot of important changes as a result of the Congressional reauthorization that mandated Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR) and Small Business Technology Transfer (STTR) funding requirements through fiscal year 2017. …. We have been working diligently alongside the Small Business Administration to put these changes into effect for NIH, as described on the SBIR/STTR Reauthorization Act of 2011: NIH Implementation of Key Changes website. As the 2014 HHS-wide SBIR and STTR Omnibus solicitations were announced last week, I thought it would be good to highlight some of these important reforms. ….
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In February last year I blogged about the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s request for comments on proposed federal grant policy reforms. These policies, contained in multiple documents known as circulars, contain Fed-wide regulations on spending, not just for research grants. Many grantees and stakeholder organizations came forth and contributed comments. This information was taken into account by OMB to bring a number of these changes into fruition. The new guidance, “Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards”, was announced by OMB in December as one consolidated omnicircular. Here are just a few highlights:
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I’m pleased to announce that the NIH Data Book has been updated with statistics of fiscal year 2013 grant funding. There is much to look at throughout the Data Book so I encourage each of you to do so, but let me just highlight some notable trends. Application success rates, as I blogged about in December, declined in 2013 to a historic low. ….
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This certainly has been a tough year for the research community supported by NIH. We started off the year on a continuing resolution with the threat of sequester looming. In March sequestration began, and we had to update our fiscal plan to accommodate reduced spending by making fewer competing awards, and in most instances issuing non-competing awards at levels below the expected FY2013 commitments. The impact of the sequester is not just limited to this fiscal year, ….
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The biomedical research enterprise relies on engaging talented researchers from all groups, including individuals from diverse backgrounds underrepresented in biomedical research. As I described earlier here on the blog, NIH has planned the launch of several programs to increase workforce diversity. I’m excited to let you know that on December 19 we issued the funding announcements for the three core initiatives that make up the Common Fund “Enhancing the Diversity of the NIH-Funded Workforce” program. ….
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Today NIH’s National Library of Medicine (NLM) is bringing a new way of sharing and exchanging research information, fully integrated with the PubMed website, to a wider audience. For the last few months, NLM has been running a pilot of a commenting system for PubMed’s massive database of biomedical literature. The system, PubMed Commons, allows authors to discuss and share information through comments on article citations. Hundreds of authors have signed up as beta testers and commenters since the pilot began. ….
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As we go into the last few weeks of the year, my office is busy working up the final numbers on application data for this year. Although the complete set of application data, tables, and graphs will not be available until later in January, I thought I would provide an early snapshot on success rates for 2013 competing research project grant (RPG) applications and awards. …..
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Attending scientific meetings and research conferences is an important way for NIH extramural scientists to stay connected with their communities and keep up with scientific advances. …. when academic and professional societies want NIH representation we have to balance our abilities to send people out with what the budget will allow. One thing that helps in this regard, particularly when we have additional layers of approval on travel, is to plan early. So, when thinking about inviting an NIH staff member to speak at a conference or other event, it’s important to understand our timelines. ….
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Remember that our report on the Biomedical Research Workforce indicated that about 6% of US-trained biomedical PhDs end up in government research? Well, most of those talented individuals are here at NIH conducting research across the full gamut of disciplines. But did you know that NIH also is a dynamic training environment for the next generation of biomedical researchers? ….
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