March 5, 2018
To capitalize on the opportunities presented by advances in data science, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) is developing a Strategic Plan for Data Science. This plan describes NIH’s overarching goals, strategic objectives, and implementation tactics for promoting the modernization of the NIH-funded biomedical data science ecosystem. As part of the planning process, NIH has published a draft of the strategic plan, along with a Request for Information (RFI) to seek input from stakeholders, including members of the scientific community, academic institutions, the private sector, health professionals, professional societies, advocacy groups, patient communities, as well as other interested members of the public.
March 31, 2016
I’d like to call your attention to an opportunity to provide comments on a proposed clinical trial protocol template, developed by the FDA and NIH, and informed by the guidance set forth by the International Conference on Harmonisation (ICH) E6 Good Clinical Practice. The template provides a standard format, and corresponding instructions and sample text, for…
November 24, 2015
As part of a wider initiative to shape the future direction of research training for the biomedical workforce as a whole, we at the NIH are actively pursuing ways to examine the physician-scientist workforce and to optimize training for clinicians seeking research careers. Physician-scientists face some challenges and career transition pathways unique to being in a clinical career track, hence the need for a specific focus on this workforce.
August 14, 2015
Understanding what you need to know and do to apply for a grant can be a challenge. NIH’s application instruction guide is long, with lots of background information that you may only occasionally need. On top of that, funding opportunity announcements have instructions that often add to those in the application instruction guide. ….
April 2, 2015
An important, recurring discussion topic on our blogs is ways to maximize the impact and sustainability of NIH-funded biomedical research. In 2011, a Rock Talk post on managing NIH’s budget in fiscally challenging times solicited many comments and led, in part, to an NIH-wide policy on special council review for applications from PIs who have more than $1 million in NIH funding. We have also implemented new programs that provide more stable support for investigators over longer time periods. A more recent example of the “maximizing impact and sustainability” theme is an NIGMS Feedback Loop post that discussed ideas for how to optimize the biomedical research ecosystem. ….
February 3, 2015
From enhancing diversity to supporting training in emerging fields, over the past three years NIH has continued to examine the needs of the biomedical workforce and create initiatives that will sustain the amazing work being performed by you, the extramural research community. Our efforts place a lot of focus on trainees and early stage investigators through policy changes and new programs, but there are two sides to every equation. We have many well-established research programs run by senior investigators. We want to explore how ….
July 17, 2014
In these times of tight budgets and rapidly evolving science, we must consider new ways to invest biomedical research dollars to achieve maximum impact—to turn scientific discoveries into better health as swiftly as possible. We do this by thinking strategically about the areas of research that we support, as well as the process by which we fund that research. …. We often hear from investigators at all career stages that they spend a significant portion of their careers writing grant applications, consuming precious time that could otherwise be spent conducting research. ….
July 17, 2013
n January I blogged about NIH’s support of health research in the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender and intersex communities (LGBTI communities). …. NIH continues extensive outreach to identify research priorities and gaps, and opportunities to capitalize on ongoing projects in this field. ….
February 28, 2013
In December I wrote about the exciting announcements presented at the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) meeting to address their recommendations on how to best support the future of biomedical research.
February 21, 2013
As I noted in my last post on the K99/R00 program and predoctoral fellowships, we have made some progress on implementing some of the recommendations proposed by the Advisory Committee to the NIH Director (ACD) working group that studied the biomedical research workforce. There are many more components to this complex initiative…
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