Director's Corner
It is a pleasure to welcome you to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). Our mission is to transform the understanding and treatment of mental illnesses through basic and clinical research, paving the way for prevention, recovery and cure.
NIMH & the Recovery Act
The recent announcement that funding from the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (the Recovery Act) will be used to support job creation and retention in biomedical research presents an exciting opportunity for NIMH. These supplemental funds arrive just as the Institute is launching the implementation of its new Strategic Plan. Released last fall, the Plan details strategic objectives and priorities that will direct and accelerate research to transform the diagnosis, treatment, and prevention of mental disorders.
For some months now, the Institute has been planning a number of initiatives based upon aggressively pursuing the objectives of the Strategic Plan, The arrival of the Recovery Act allows us an unprecedented opportunity to jumpstart this process. Recovery Act funds will be used to (1) support select basic and clinical research project grants with outstanding scores, (2) supplement currently funded projects in specific areas of need, (3) award grants funded through a new NIH-wide program called the NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science, (4) award grants funded through another new NIH-wide program called Research and Research Infrastructure Grand Opportunities Grants, (5) support start-up funds for newly independent faculty and (6) hasten progress in specified areas with new requests for applications, including the recent funding opportunity announcement to support research on the heterogeneity of autism spectrum disorders.
NIMH will allocate funds based on the strength of the applications received and their significance to efforts to accelerate the field in areas described in the Strategic Plan. For allocations on HIV/AIDS and for mental health research training more broadly, funding will be based on the priorities outlined in the NIH Office of AIDS Research Strategic Plan and the National Advisory Mental Health Council Workgroup report on research training. Preliminary estimates indicate that funding will be allocated for the Recovery Act initiatives as follows:
- NIH Challenge Grants in Health and Science: In addition to those mental health projects that receive funding from central NIH resources, NIMH plans to commit approximately $45 million per year to Challenge Grants.
- Research and Research Infrastructure Grand Opportunities Grants: In addition to those mental health projects that receive funding from central NIH resources, NIMH plans to commit approximately $50 million per year towards Grand Opportunities (GO) grants. NIMH may also co-fund the GO grant initiatives of other NIH Institutes depending on the strength of the application and its relevance to NIMH’s Strategic Plan.
- Administrative Supplements: NIMH is planning to commit approximately $5 million per year for administrative supplements to a small number of grants that the Institute currently funds to expand or expedite research that is within the scope of the original grant.
- Revision Applications: NIMH is planning to commit approximately $5 million per year to support competitive revisions to grants that the Institute currently funds for research that is beyond the scope of the original grant.
- Research to Address the Heterogeneity of Autism Spectrum Disorders: In support of the Funding Opportunity Announcements titled “Research to Address the Heterogeneity of Autism Spectrum Disorders” NIMH intends to contribute $30 million of the total $60 million that NIH has committed for this new initiative to jumpstart the Interagency Autism Coordinating Committee’s (IACC) Strategic Plan for Autism Spectrum Disorder Research.
- NIH Core Centers to Support New Faculty Recruitment: NIMH plans to commit $2.5 million per year to this program to provide support for newly independent investigators.
In all cases, funds will be awarded based on the strength of the applications received and the proposed research’s ability to accelerate the field toward the Strategic Plan’s four objectives:
- Promote discovery in brain and behavioral sciences to fuel research on the causes of mental disorders
- Chart mental illness trajectories to determine when, where, and how to intervene
- Develop new and better interventions that incorporate the diverse needs and circumstances of people with mental illnesses
- Strengthen the public health impact of NIMH-support research.
I encourage you to visit NIMH’s Recovery page to learn more about the stimulus programs funded by the Institute and the opportunities they present. In the coming weeks, we will be announcing several more initiatives as plans unfold.
More Information on the Recovery Act
Selected Publications by the Director
Reports, articles, and other published works…
- Insel, TR. Translating scientific opportunity into public health impact: a strategic plan for research on mental illness. Arch Gen Psychiatry. 2009 Feb;66(2):128-33. PMID: 19188534
- Landis S, Insel TR. The “neuro” in neurogenetics. Science. 2008 Nov 7;322(5903):821. PMID: 18988812.
- Insel, TR. From animal models to model animals. Biol Psychiatry. 2007 Dec 15;62(12):1337-9. PMID: 18054535
- Insel TR, Lehner T. A new era in psychiatric genetics? Biol Psychiatry. 2007 May 1;61(9):1017-8. PMID: 17434010
- Insel TR. Devising prevention and treatment strategies for the nation’s diverse populations with mental illness. Psychiatr Serv. 2007 Mar;58(3):395. PMID: 17325114
Other On-Line Resources
- The National Institute of Mental Health Strategic Plan
- The NIH Advisory Council to the Director has accepted the Blue Ribbon Panel’s evaluation of the NIMH IRP
- NIH Almanac: NIMH
Annual publication containing relevant facts, such as appropriations, legislative chronology, and program information on the 27 Institutes and Centers that comprise NIH - Mental Health: A Report of the Surgeon General
- Mental Health: Culture, Race, and Ethnicity
- President's New Freedom Commission on Mental Health Report
