Tag: Grants policy

Status of Our Initiatives to Strengthen Clinical Trials

January 6, 2017
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In September Dr. Carrie Wolinetz and I blogged about our policy reforms to build a more robust clinical trials enterprise through greater stewardship and transparency at each phase of the clinical trial journey from conception to sharing of results. We discussed how these efforts promise to improve the quality and efficiency of clinical trials, translating into more innovative and robust clinical trial design, and accelerated discoveries that will advance human health.

Over the past months we have continued to partner with the community to work through the implementation of these new policies, developing responses to frequently asked questions and even reconsidering the timing of our single IRB policy to give our grantees time to work through how to operationalize the change. ….

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Improving Visibility of NIH-supported Clinical Trial Activities and Results

September 16, 2016
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In a separate post today, we provide an overview of the various reforms the NIH is leading to enhance our stewardship of clinical trials. In this post we’d like to focus a bit more on our efforts to broadly disseminate clinical trial availability and results information.

Timely dissemination of clinical trial results information has been a problem, one that has been documented more than once, and that appears to apply to NIH- as well as non-NIH funded trials. To realize the benefits of a clinical trial, the findings must be available to the public as soon as possible after the trial has concluded. This is not only responsible use of taxpayer dollars for publicly funded trials, but also fulfills our responsibility to the individuals who volunteered in these studies with an understanding that their participation would contribute to advancing medical knowledge. Today, NIH announced a new policy that will complement a new federal regulation, referred to here as the Final Rule, also released today, to improve the accessibility of information on clinical trial availability and on the outcomes and results of completed trials.

As you likely know, to carry out the laws passed by Congress, federal agencies issue regulations that govern the activities of the agency and the applicable community. The “Final Rule” announced today by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services is …

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Building Better Clinical Trials through Stewardship and Transparency

September 16, 2016
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NIH is the largest public funder of clinical trials in the United States. As stewards of this research enterprise, we have been actively listening and discussing how to overcome hurdles and shortcomings that we, and others in the research community, have identified. If you’ve been following the conversation, you’ll know that NIH already has implemented some key reforms to enhance clinical trial stewardship. Today, in a Viewpoint Essay published in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA), we provide an overview of how these reforms, and new initiatives, fit in to the broader picture of building a better clinical trial enterprise through better stewardship, accountability, and transparency.

Figure 1 illustrates the clinical trial “lifespan”, and key opportunities for improving the quality and efficiency of clinical trials – opportunities that translate into more innovative and robust clinical trial design, and accelerated discoveries that will advance human health. NIH is leading a multi-faceted effort that addresses shortcomings and challenges throughout this lifespan, including the application and award process; the scientific review of trial applications; post-award management and oversight; sharing of trial data; and dissemination of research results information to the public. ….

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NRSA Postdoctoral Stipend Guidelines for FY2017

August 30, 2016
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This month, NIH published the projected fiscal year 2017 stipend guidelines for postdoctoral trainees and fellows supported by National Research Service Awards (NRSAs). For NRSA-supported postdocs with less than one year’s experience, the stipend level will increase to $47,484. In keeping with the recommendation of the Biomedical Research Workforce Working Group of the NIH Advisory Committee to the Director, stipend levels then increase dependent on years of postdoctoral experience. ….

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Accelerating Clinical Research by Streamlining Multi-site Review of Human Subjects Research

June 21, 2016
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Research involving human participants is key to improving public health and advancing medicine. Oversight of such research by institutional review boards (IRBs) both protects research participants and promotes ethical science. IRB review and approval is a critical step in initiating the start of a research project and for multi-site studies, NIH is taking an important step to help streamline the process. Today, NIH is issuing the NIH Policy on the Use of a Single Institutional Review Board (IRB) for Multi-Site Research (sIRB Policy) ….

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How New US Overtime Provisions Will Affect Postdoctoral Researchers

May 18, 2016
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The Fair Labor Standards Act (FLSA) is the law that contains overtime pay provisions for employees across the United States, entitling all US workers to overtime pay unless they are exempted because they are paid on fixed, preset salaries; are engaged in executive, administrative, or professional duties; and are paid at least $23,660 per year. Today, a historic change to this act has occurred – under the new rule, the overtime pay threshold will be increased to $47,476, effective December 1, 2016. ….

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Updates on Addressing Rigor in Your NIH Applications

January 11, 2016
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As NIH moves ahead with implementing measures to enhance rigor, transparency and reproducibility in NIH-supported research, I’d like to give a brief update on these efforts, and highlight some important timeline changes for implementation in applications for institutional training grants (T), institutional career development awards (K12), and individual fellowships (F). ….

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What Does It Mean to Consider Sex as a Relevant Biological Variable in Your NIH Grant Application?

December 11, 2015
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In 2014, NIH announced plans for policy changes to ensure that NIH-supported investigators consider relevant measures, including sex as a biological variable (SABV), in preclinical research. NIH solicited feedback through a request for information, and we invited the research community to participate in workshops and resource development. These activities led to new guidelines for addressing SABV as an aspect of rigor and reproducibility in NIH research project grant applications and mentored career development award applications due January 25, 2016, and beyond. As you prepare applications and think about addressing the new instructions we wanted to offer some reminders about the policy’s origin, and about the application and review information. In particular, we wanted to point out what including SABV does not mean. ….

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Bolstering Trust in Science Through Rigorous Standards

October 30, 2015
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Scientists have long considered the research process to be self-correcting; we trust that, even if scientists may sometimes make errors in the lab, those errors will eventually be discovered and corrected as others try to substantiate and extend original research findings. However, as stated in a commentary by NIH Director Francis Collins and NIH Deputy Director Larry Tabak, “A growing chorus of concern, from scientists and laypeople, contends that the complex system for ensuring the reproducibility of biomedical research is failing and is in need of restructuring.”
There are examples that indicate that our processes have room for improvement. For example, a 2008 study ….

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