CARRA and NIH: Priorities for Public Involvement

Public involvement in the research process - in a range of ways - is important to the National Cancer Institute and the NCI-CARRA program. This section highlights some of the reasons why, including those we share with the National Institutes of Health (NIH) as a whole.

CARRA Participation with Other Institutes, Offices, Centers

The CARRA program has developed to a point where it can stand as a model program for research advocate involvement, share its resources (such as materials and experience) with others, jointly explore the growing role of public members in peer review, and serve as a resource of CARRA members for cancer-related activities in other components of NIH.

Request CARRA Participation - Research or Related Activity

While CARRA exists primarily to serve the needs of NCI staff members, if another NIH Institute, Office, or Center or another Federal agency has a cancer-related activity where the involvement of a CARRA member could make a contribution, those Federal staffers can request CARRA participation. This section describes the NCI staff process. Please Contact Us for other NIH or agency CARRA requests.

CARRA Stories

CARRA Stories put a human face on the text and data describing the benefits of involving CARRA members in NCI’s research and related activities. Within the strictly observed bounds of confidentiality and other research-related guidelines of NCI’s work, the CARRA program is collecting a library of CARRA Stories from both CARRA members and NCI staff.

Public Input to Research: Other Programs

As CARRA serves the National Cancer Institute and relates to other programs at the National Institutes of Health, it is also important to recognize the context of important work being done by program staffs both inside and outside the Government, dedicated to increase the value-added contributions of public input to research.