Department of Health
and Human Services (HHS)
and Human Services (HHS)
February 1, 2022
NOT-OD-22-054 - Inviting Comments and Suggestions on the Draft NIH Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity Strategic Plan for FYs 2022-2026
NATIONAL INSTITUTES OF HEALTH (NIH)
This Notice is a Request for Information (RFI) inviting feedback on the Framework for the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA).
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
The purpose of the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for DEIA is to articulate NIH’s vision for embracing, integrating, and strengthening diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility (DEIA) across all NIH activities to achieve the NIH mission. The Strategic Plan will capture activities that NIH will undertake to meet the vision of the Strategic Plan, and will be organized around accomplishments, needs, opportunities, and challenges in addressing DEIA in the NIH workforce, its structure and culture, and the research it supports.
NIH has implemented a range of other past and current initiatives, and is planning initiatives in the future to advance DEIA. Among them, the UNITE initiative was established in 2021 to identify and address structural racism within the NIH-supported and the greater scientific community. Please note that an RFI on a Draft 2022-2026 Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity (COSWD) Strategic Plan was released on January 12, 2022 and, therefore, open for public comment at the same time as a Framework for the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility (DEIA). You are encouraged to respond to both.
The NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for DEIA highlights NIH’s ongoing and future efforts to foster DEIA within the biomedical research enterprise. The Framework for the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for DEIA, below, articulates NIH’s priorities in three key areas (Objectives).. These Objectives apply across NIH.
NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for DEIA Framework
Objective 1: Implement Organizational Practices to Center and Prioritize DEIA in the Workforce
Objective 2: Grow and Sustain DEIA through Structural and Cultural Change
Objective 3: Advance DEIA Through Research
Request for Comments
This RFI invites input from stakeholders throughout the scientific research, advocacy, and clinical practice communities, those employed by NIH or at institutions receiving NIH support as well as the general public, regarding the above proposed framework for the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for DEIA.
The NIH seeks comments on any or all of, but not limited to, NIH’s priorities across the three key areas (Objectives) articulated in the framework, including potential benefits, drawbacks or challenges, and other priority areas for consideration.
NIH encourages organizations (e.g., patient advocacy groups, professional organizations) to submit a single response reflective of the views of the organization or membership as a whole.
How to Submit a Response
All comments must be submitted electronically on the submission website.
Responses must be received by 11:59:59 pm (ET) on April 3 , 2022.
Responses to this RFI are voluntary and may be submitted anonymously. Please do not include any personally identifiable information or any information that you do not wish to make public. Proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should not be included in your response. 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 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 informational and planning purposes only and is not a solicitation for applications or an obligation on the part of the Government to provide support for any ideas identified in response to it. Please note that the Government will not pay for the preparation of any information submitted or for use of that information.
We look forward to your input and hope that you will share this RFI opportunity with your colleagues.
Email: nihstrategicplan@od.nih.gov