Notice Number: NOT-DA-14-007

Key Dates
Release Date: March 3, 2014

Issued by
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

Purpose

NIDA's mission is to lead the Nation in bringing the power of science to bear on drug abuse and addiction. To make meaningful and powerful research progress, foundational data upon which new advances will hinge must be reliable and reproducible. This is especially important in order to enable translation of scientific discoveries arising from laboratory/preclinical findings into human applications intended to facilitate the development of new therapies. Toward this end, NIDA is committed to the support of translational studies involving animals, which are marked by transparency in reporting on the design, conduct and analysis of experiments.

With this Notice, NIDA aims to heighten awareness to this commitment in the drug abuse and addiction research communities. Investigators proposing translational studies involving animals are encouraged to address a core set of research parameters/reporting standards including animal selection, sample size estimation and statistical methods, as well as to describe procedures for randomization, blinding and data handling in their applications. Transparency in the reporting of these parameters will facilitate reproducibility among laboratories and ultimately the translation of findings to the clinic. A more detailed list of adequate reporting standards may be found on the NIDA website (http://www.drugabuse.gov/offices/office-nida-director-od/office-translational-initiatives-program-innovations-otipi/nih-initiative-enhancing-research-reproducibility-transparency).

To help insure that investigators are informed of NIDA’s commitment to transparency in reporting research methods and results in the translational studies involving animals, the conditions contained herein will be included in all appropriate FOAs on which NIDA is the lead Institute. Investigators seeking NIDA grant support are urged to discuss these issues with program staff prior to submission of applications.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Elena Koustova, Ph.D.
National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Telephone: 301-496-8768
Email: koustovae@nida.nih.gov