USDA Agricultural Research Service

 Retrospective Assessment of National Program 107

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Description of Panel:

The Retrospective Review Panel NP-107 met in Beltsville, MD, on November 2-3, 2006, to conduct a review of USDA-ARS-NP-107 (Human Nutrition) research and progress since 2000.  The members of the Review Panel were 7 scientists external to the ARS, with expertise in various aspects of human nutrition including obesity, nutrition, biochemistry, physiology, and public health.  The Review Panel was provided with an accomplishment report that focused on 7 major components within the ARS program.   Individual projects were not assessed, but this was an overall review of progress made with representative reporting and references to selected publications from each component that were chosen by the National Program leadership staff.  The Review Panel was informed that the accomplishments of the National Program as a direct result of the research activities from 2000 to 2006 should be assessed against commitments and goals identified in the Action Plan created at the beginning of the National Program cycle.  The criteria used to assess the impact of research activities included the following:

• Research significantly advanced the knowledge of human nutrition
• Research was innovative and significantly influenced other researchers in the same or related fields or yielded important new directions for research
• Research was used to formulate national dietary recommendations, i.e., Dietary Reference Intakes for United States (DRIs) or the Dietary Guidelines for Americans
• Research contributed to the development and/or implementation of government or industry policy or regulations (contributed to reports forming the basis for policy)
• Research resulted in new or improved scientific methods, tools or technologies developed by ARS and adopted by others (customers, stakeholders, consumers and/or other scientists).
• Research resulted in technology transfer such as timely public releases of food composition and national dietary survey databases, research products that have stimulated new business growth, and/or technology that has been patented/licensed leading to commercialization

You may download a PDF version of the report here.