Notice Number: NOT-OD-15-118

Key Dates
Release Date: July 22, 2015
Response Date: August 16, 2015

Issued by
National Institutes of Health (NIH)

Purpose

This Notice is a time-sensitive Request for Information (RFI) inviting comments and suggestions on the framework for the NIH-wide Strategic Plan.

NOTE: It is important to read this entire RFI notice to ensure an adequate response is prepared and to have a full understanding of how your response will be utilized.

Background

In response to a request from the Congress, NIH is developing a 5-year NIH-wide Strategic Plan to advance its mission to support research in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems, and the application of that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce illness and disability. Senior leadership and staff from all 27 Institutes, Centers, and Offices (ICOs) are contributing to the proposed direction and content of the Strategic Plan, with input from the Advisory Committee to the Director, NIH. The framework below identifies crosscutting areas of research exemplifying the breadth of ICOs' priorities and aims to outline a set of unifying principles to guide NIH in pursuit of its mission. The goal of this larger NIH-wide strategic plan is not to outline the myriad of important research opportunities for specific disease applications (as that is covered in the strategic plans from each of the ICOs, which will be referenced appropriately), but to highlight major trans-NIH themes. The Strategic Plan is due to the Congress in late December 2015.

NIH-wide Strategic Plan Framework

Overview

• This section will include a discussion on subjects such as the NIH mission, the status of and opportunities in biomedical research, the current NIH-supported research landscape (i.e., basic and applied research, extramural and intramural research, ICOs with their own strategic plans, Common Fund, challenges), and constraints confronting the community in the face of lost purchasing power

Areas of Opportunity that Apply Across Biomedicine

• Promote Fundamental Science
• Basic Science is the foundation for progress
• Consequences of basic science discoveries are often unpredictable
• Advances in clinical research methodologies stimulate scientific progress
• Leaps in Technology often catalyze major scientific advances
• Data science increases the impact and efficiency of research
• Improve Health Promotion and Disease Prevention
• Importance of studying healthy individuals
• Advances in early diagnosis/detection
• Evidence-Based interventions to eliminate health disparities
• Advance Treatments and Cures
• Unprecedented opportunities on the basis of molecular knowledge
• Breakdown of traditional disease boundaries
• Breakthroughs need partnerships and often come from unexpected directions

Unifying Principles

• Set NIH Priorities NIH sets priorities by incorporating measures of disease burden, understanding the need to foster scientific opportunity through nimble and adaptable methods, supporting opportunities presented by rare disease research, and considering the value of permanently eradicating a pandemic
• Enhance Stewardship NIH enhances stewardship of the research enterprise by recruiting and retaining an outstanding biomedical research workforce, enhancing workforce diversity, , encouraging innovation, optimizing approaches to guide how decisions are made, enhancing partnerships, promoting scientific rigor and reproducibility, reducing administrative burden, and employing risk management strategies in decision-making.

Information Requested

This RFI seeks input from stakeholders throughout the scientific research community and the general public regarding the above proposed framework for the NIH-wide Strategic Plan.

The NIH seeks comments on any or all of, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Potential benefits, drawbacks/challenges, and areas of consideration for the current framework
• Compatibility of the framework with the broad scope of the NIH mission
• Additional concepts in ICO strategic plans that are cross-cutting and should be included in this trans-NIH strategic plan
• Comprehensive trans-NIH research themes that have not been captured in the Areas of Opportunity that Apply Across Biomedicine
• Components of the Areas of Opportunity that Apply Across Biomedicine that are not applicable to an NIH-wide Strategic Plan
• Future opportunities or emerging research needs

How to Submit a Response

All comments must be submitted electronically on the submission website.

Responses (no longer than 300 words in MS Word or pdf format) must be received by 11:59:59 pm (ET) on August 16, 2015. You will see an electronic confirmation acknowledging receipt of your response.

Responses to this RFI are voluntary. Do not include any proprietary, classified, confidential, trade secret, or sensitive information in your response. The responses will be reviewed by NIH staff, and individual feedback will not be provided to any responder. The Government will use the information submitted in response to this RFI at its discretion. The Government reserves the right to use any submitted information on public NIH websites, in reports, in summaries of the state of the science, in any possible resultant solicitation(s), grant(s), or cooperative agreement(s), or in the development of future funding opportunity announcements.

This RFI is for information and planning purposes only and shall not be construed as a solicitation, grant, or cooperative agreement, or as an obligation on the part of the Federal Government, the NIH, or individual NIH Institutes and Centers to provide support for any ideas identified in response to it. The Government will not pay for the preparation of any information submitted or for the Government’s use of such information. No basis for claims against the U.S. Government shall arise as a result of a response to this request for information or from the Government’s use of such information.

We look forward to your input and hope that you will share this RFI document with your colleagues.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Email: nihstrategicplan@od.nih.gov