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Issued by

National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)

Purpose

The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) seeks to understand how to build and support a DOC data ecosystem that can better enable investigators and clinicians to extract insights from diverse, multi-dimensional, and heterogeneous datasets and apply the knowledge gained to improve oral and overall health of all individuals. As such, NIDCR is seeking input on the needs and best practices for DOC data storage, management, infrastructure, sustainability, and tools for use and reuse. 

Background

The NIDCR Strategic Plan 2021-2026 has created an overarching vision for the future, as well as guiding principles to steer the Institute to execute the Plan. The Plan establishes five priority areas as follows.

Goal 1:  Advance cross-disciplinary fundamental research in the biomedical, behavioral, social, and environmental sciences and drive its translation into innovations for the prevention, early diagnosis, and treatment of dental, oral and craniofacial (DOC) diseases and conditions across the lifespan.

Goal 2:  Develop more precise and individualized ways of managing and preventing DOC diseases.

Goal 3:  Accelerate the translation of research and the uptake of new discoveries into oral and general healthcare practices that reduce health inequities and disparities and improve oral health outcomes for individuals and communities worldwide.

Goal 4:  Nurture future generations of DOC researchers and oral health professional scholars who can address existing and emerging challenges driven by personalized and public health needs and a continually evolving landscape of science and technology advances.

Goal 5:  Expand already existing partnerships and create new ones to advance the NIDCR research enterprise and increase its reach and impact.

In alignment with both the NIDCR strategic plan and the new NIH policy for Data Management and Sharing (NOT-OD-21-013), a thoughtful assessment of how to address data and data science needs of the DOC community across the translational research spectrum is critical and timely. To accomplish our goals and to facilitate data sharing, a coordinated, sustainable, and streamlined infrastructure is required to store, preserve, retrieve, and make data findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR).

Information Requested  

This Request for Information (RFI) is intended to assist the NIDCR in understanding the existing processes and workflows of data storage, preservation, and sharing, in the following aspects.

• Data transformation, storage, preservation, and sharing processes;
• Data types being collected at research core facilities and independent laboratories;
• Data standards that are being used for scientific data and metadata that enable reuse of shared data to enhance DOC research and clinical care.

This RFI defines “DOC data” as data that are either solely DOC-focused or contain DOC elements.

Submitting a Response

This RFI invites participation from stakeholders and experts across the DOC research enterprise: individual research laboratories, staff from scientific instrumentation core facilities, offices of research or sponsored projects, offices of provost, libraries, information technology and security personnel, institutional review boards, bioinformaticians, and data scientists and data managers who assist in data curation, formatting, and analysis.  All respondents are encouraged to answer as many questions as they are able, irrespective of their roles in the research enterprise.

This RFI is for planning purposes only and should not be construed as a solicitation or an obligation on the part of the US federal government, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research, or any other individual NIH Institute, Center, or Office.  The NIH does not intend to make any type of award based on responses to this RFI or to pay for either the preparation of information submitted or the NIH’s or federal government’s use of such information.

Responses to this RFI are voluntary.  Proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should not be included in your response.  NIDCR will use the information submitted in response to this RFI at its discretion and will not provide comments to any individual responder’s submission.  Names need not be associated with responses; responses are voluntary and may be submitted anonymously.  Responders are free to address any or all of the questions.  Any personal identifiers (e.g., names, institutions, email addresses) will be removed when responses are compiled.  The information provided will be analyzed and may be shared publicly or appear in reports, public NIH websites, or in the development of future funding opportunities.  Respondents are advised that the US federal government is under no obligation to acknowledge receipt of the information or to provide feedback to respondents with respect to any information submitted.  The government reserves the right to use any non-proprietary technical information in any resultant solicitation(s).

To respond to this RFI, please submit your response via this Comments should be submitted electronically WEBFORMHERE. 

The webform is the preferred mode of input, but you may also upload a file with associated answers on the collection website. The NIDCR looks forward to your responses, and we hope that you will share this RFI document with your colleagues so that they may also respond.

Responses must be received by 11:59:59 pm (ET) on September 25, 2023.

Inquiries

Please direct all inquiries to:

Noffisat O. Oki, Ph.D.
National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR)
Telephone: 301-402-6778
Email: noffisat.oki@nih.gov