NIH's Strategic Plan 2016-2020

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) just released its strategic plan, designed as their guide for 2016-2020. The plan is not long (45 pages), but I thought I'd use this blog as an executive summary. The NIH will use this plan as complementary to the individual institutes' plans, so it is certainly worth looking at the current strategic plan of any institute in which you are interested in seeking funding as well.

In its plan, the NIH laid out four objectives:

1. Advance Opportunities in Biomedical Research
The NIH is looking to seize on the "cross-cutting opportunities" in three areas: fundamental science, health promotion/disease prevention, and treatment. Key to these are the increased and enhanced data sharing that will allow for more collaborative work in these key areas. Additionally, the NIH is promoting collaboration across the public and private sectors vying for the most innovative approaches. The re-focusing on fundamental science may mean that for more basic scientists, they may find more of an entree into NIH where they may have sensed a larger push toward translational approaches previously. Under the health promotion/disease prevention category, the NIH is particularly focused on "precision medicine," to encourage more individualized treatments to disease prevention and management. Additionally, they are looking to streamline clinical trials through their Clinical and Translational programs and in updating the Common Rule protections.

2. Foster Innovation by Setting NIH Priorities
The NIH will be engaging in prioritization over the next five years. Along with this, they will work to ensure that Institute/Center Operations (ICOs) will be allowed to set their own paylines and that the cutoff will be based on peer-review scores. However, ICO Directors will be given flexibility to use their select pay funds on projects that do not fall within the payline, yet meet a named priority for the institute. The NIH will also look for other avenues to increase the nimbleness of their responses to breakthroughs and needs.

Around disease, the NIH will have a focus on the burden of disease, in an effort to better understand the full "cost" of disease (including basic science research). They will also continue to look at rare disease, not only to help those afflicted, but to also enhance understanding of physiology that comes in studying rare diseases. Excitingly, the NIH is going to also invest in the eradication of HIV/AIDS, in an effort to foster the first generation that is HIV/AIDS free in over a half century.

3. Enhance Scientific Stewardship
In an effort to strengthen the Biomedical workforce, the NIH will also look to increase its funding to new and early career investigators in an effort to close the gap between the funding rates for these and more seasoned investigators. Additionally, the NIH will work to increase the Biomedical workforce diversity, with particular attention to racial diversity.

The NIH will also continue its work, in collaboration with scientific journals to increase the reproducibility of the research they fund, conduct, and publish. On the administrative side, the NIH will look to streamline the reporting system to lessen the burden on PI's. They will also look at the funding and review process to encourage interdisciplinary and team science projects. In addition, a greater expectation will be placed on funded researchers to serve as peer reviewers.

4. Excel as a Federal Science Agency by Managing for Results
In an effort to better measure the impact of its sponsored projects, the NIH will focus on assessment of research outcomes rather than outputs. It will also invest in "the science of science" to lead the work in understanding how to better assess and manage Biomedical research broadly. The NIH will also continue to re-assess its peer review process to find where improvements can and should be made.

This executive summary gives you a glimpse, but the strategic plan is really an exciting and inspiring read. It reminds us of the work, breakthroughs, and innovations that have been developed with NIH support and further shows us the kind of opportunities we have to work toward.

Happy holidays from ORDE!

Resources:
NIH Strategic Plan