June 16, 2022
NOT-OD-22-109 - Inviting Comments and Suggestions on the Development of a Prize Competition for Institutional Excellence in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility.
Office of The Director, National Institutes of Health (OD)
The purpose of this notice is to inform stakeholders of a correction to NOT-OD-22-109 - Inviting Comments and Suggestions on the Development of a Prize Competition for Institutional Excellence in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility. This notice has been corrected to add a new background section, UNITE language, new hyperlinks throughout, and make minor formatting corrections.
Currently Reads:
Purpose
The Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity team (hereafter COSWD) is located within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an operating division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and is part of the NIH Office of the Director. The COSWD reports directly to the NIH Director. The COSWD’s central organizational position aligns with its NIH-wide mission to be the agency’s thought leader in the science of scientific workforce diversity by using evidence-based approaches to catalyze cultures of inclusive excellence. As these cultures of inclusive excellence mature, the COSWD ultimately aims to enable NIH and NIH-funded institutions to benefit from a full range of talent, fostering creativity and innovation in science.
An extensive body of research supports the concept that scientific workforce diversity is essential to accomplish the NIH’s mission of discovery and innovation to improve human health (Nielsen et al., 2017;Valantine and Collins, 2015; Smith-Doerr et al., 2017; Freeman and Huang, 2015; Haynes et al., 2020; Kozlowski et al., 2022). The longstandingNIH investment in research training to enhance workforce diversityat the early stages of the training pathway has contributed to building a diverse pool of highly-qualified biomedical, behavioral, and social science doctoral recipients. While there has been a notable increase in the number of scientists from underrepresented groups (URG, including women) who have earned doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM), their representation remains less than equitable (National Science Foundation, 2021). Furthermore, the problem is increasingly more pronounced at the postdoctoral training through independent faculty stages where increasing evidence demonstratessignificant attritionof these talented scientists from the NIH-funded research workforce (Gibbs et al., 2016). Starkly, extrapolation of current trends suggests that without new and effective strategies, it will take nearly 50 years for women to reach parity among full professors (Valantine et al., 2014;National Science Foundation, 2019) and centuries for underrepresented racial/ethnic groups to reach parity among medical school faculty with the current recruitment pool (U.S. Medical School Faculty Trends: Percentages). This representation gap is primarily driven by institutional cultures lacking necessary elements of inclusion and equity and sending the message to specific groups that they do not belong in science (Price EG et al., 2009;Pololi LH et al., 2013).
To address this critical situation, NIH plans to initiate a multi-step process to enhance its work to diversify the biomedical research workforce by expanding its extramural investment in workforce diversity. As previous approaches that focus on individuals have only slowly “moved the needle,” targeting systemic change through institutional transformation is necessary. NIH institutes and centers remain committed to increasing and sustaining the diversity of the biomedical research workforce through a focus on institutional culture change.
As part of this commitment, COSWD is considering a prize competition to reward and promote inclusive excellence. Prize competitions are a tool for incentivizing the achievement of scientific and technological innovation by offering monetary or nonmonetary benefits (e.g., recognition) to competition participants. Inclusive excellence refers to scientific environments that can cultivate and benefit from a full range of scientific talent. This potential prize competition aims to acknowledge transformative cultures, systems, projects, and processes that institutions of higher education have developed to achieve inclusive excellence by creating research environments that promote and value a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. These elements are essential to ensure equity and the elimination of structural barriers to success among students and faculty in the research enterprise.
Another objective of this prize competition is to seek best practices for implementing institutional approaches that lead to successful transformative and enhanced culture change and advancement of students and faculty from underrepresented groups in biomedical and biobehavioral disciplines in institutions of higher education. This potential prize competition would seek to highlight practices that have resulted in measurable change and created a more inclusive environment for students and faculty.
The COSWD is considering conducting this prize competition using the statutory authority granted to federal agencies under Section 105 of the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Reauthorization Act of 2010, P.L. 111-358, codified at 15 U.S.C. 3719 (the “America COMPETES Act”), as amended by the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, P.L. 114-329 (AICA).
Modified to Read (modified text in italicized bold):
Purpose
This Notice is a Request for Information (RFI) inviting comments and guidance to be considered during the development of a prize competition to recognize institutions of higher education that have implemented innovative and successful programs or interventions for enhancing faculty and student diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility.
Background
The Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity team (hereafter COSWD) is located within the National Institutes of Health (NIH), an operating division of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), and is part of the NIH Office of the Director. The COSWD reports directly to the NIH Director. The COSWD’s central organizational position aligns with its NIH-wide mission to be the agency’s thought leader in the science of scientific workforce diversity by using evidence-based approaches to catalyze cultures of inclusive excellence. As these cultures of inclusive excellence mature, the COSWD ultimately aims to enable NIH and NIH-funded institutions to benefit from a full range of talent, fostering creativity and innovation in science.
An extensive body of research supports the concept that scientific workforce diversity is essential to accomplish the NIH’s mission of discovery and innovation to improve human health (Nielsen et al., 2017; Valantine and Collins, 2015; Smith-Doerr et al., 2017; Freeman and Huang, 2015; Haynes et al., 2020; Kozlowski et al., 2022). The longstanding NIH investment in research training to enhance workforce diversity at the early stages of the training pathway has contributed to building a diverse pool of highly-qualified biomedical, behavioral, and social science doctoral recipients. While there has been a notable increase in the number of scientists from underrepresented groups (URG, including women) who have earned doctoral degrees in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and medicine (STEMM), their representation remains less than equitable (National Science Foundation, 2021). Furthermore, the problem is increasingly more pronounced at the postdoctoral training through independent faculty stages where increasing evidence demonstrates significant attrition of these talented scientists from the NIH-funded research workforce (Gibbs et al., 2016). Starkly, extrapolation of current trends suggests that without new and effective strategies, it will take nearly 50 years for women to reach parity among full professors (Valantine et al., 2014; National Science Foundation, 2019) and centuries for underrepresented racial/ethnic groups to reach parity among medical school faculty with the current recruitment pool (U.S. Medical School Faculty Trends: Percentages). This representation gap is primarily driven by institutional cultures lacking necessary elements of inclusion and equity and sending the message to specific groups that they do not belong in science (Price EG et al., 2009; Pololi LH et al., 2013).
To address this critical situation, NIH has initiated a multi-pronged effort to enhance its work to diversify the biomedical research workforce by expanding its extramural investment in workforce diversity. As previous approaches that focus on individuals have only slowly “moved the needle,” targeting systemic change through institutional transformation is necessary. NIH institutes and centers remain committed to increasing and sustaining the diversity of the biomedical research workforce through a focus on institutional culture change. The UNITE Initiative, publicly unveiled in February 2021 and established to identify and address structural racism within the NIH-supported and the greater scientific community, has been leading these efforts. One of the foci of UNITE is the extramural research ecosystem: changing policy, culture, and structure to promote workforce diversity. In keeping with this focus, on behalf of UNITE the Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity (COSWD) office, is leading the collaborative development and implementation of a prize competition to reward and promote inclusive excellence at academic institutions.
As per a recommendation from UNITE, NIH is considering a prize competition to reward and promote inclusive excellence. Prize competitions are a tool for incentivizing the achievement of scientific and technological innovation by offering monetary or nonmonetary benefits (e.g., recognition) to competition participants. Inclusive excellence refers to scientific environments that can cultivate and benefit from a full range of scientific talent. This potential prize competition aims to acknowledge transformative cultures, systems, projects, and processes that institutions of higher education have developed to achieve inclusive excellence by creating research environments that promote and value a culture of diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility. These elements are essential to ensure equity and the elimination of structural barriers to success among students and faculty in the research enterprise.
Another objective of this prize competition is to seek best practices for implementing institutional approaches that lead to successful transformative and enhanced culture change and advancement of students and faculty from underrepresented groups in biomedical and biobehavioral disciplines in institutions of higher education. This potential prize competition would seek to highlight practices that have resulted in measurable change and created a more inclusive environment for students and faculty.
The COSWD is considering conducting this prize competition using the statutory authority granted to federal agencies under Section 105 of the America Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education, and Science Reauthorization Act of 2010, P.L. 111-358, codified at 15 U.S.C. 3719 (the “America COMPETES Act”), as amended by the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act, P.L. 114-329 (AICA).
NIH Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity Office
COSWDPrizeCompetition@nih.gov
and Human Services (HHS)
