NIH Extramural Nexus

Back in June, I mentioned that we are looking at opening up the Clinical Center to the extramural community. Now, we are asking for your input. We need you to identify opportunities that could involve use of the NIH Clinical Center in collaboration with NIH intramural investigators. We are interested in general paradigms for these collaborations.

We’ve provided a list of the resources that would be available, including equipment, patient cohorts, training, and goods and services. Here are some questions that we thought of that you might want to address:

• How would partnering with NIH intramural investigators and use of the NIH Clinical Center resources help advance your research project or enhance your science?
• What special Clinical Center resources would you be most interested in using and why?
• What current barriers or challenges exist for you in accessing the Clinical Center or in partnering with the NIH intramural community?
• What actions should the NIH and Clinical Center consider taking to address these challenges or to make it more feasible for you to access the Clinical Center and NIH intramural investigators? If you have ever utilized the Clinical Center or partnered with an intramural program at the Clinical Center, how did the partnership/utilization work and how satisfied were you with your overall experience?

December 1, 2011 is the last day to submit a response, and you must submit electronically. For more details, see the request for information.

Thanks to everyone who has commented and provided suggestions on ways for NIH to manage in fiscally challenging times. I appreciate all the input. We’ve received more than a 150 responses. If you haven’t had a chance to comment yet, I encourage you to do so. You can leave a comment on the blog or send it to NIHResourceManagement@nih.gov.

In one of the comment threads, there was discussion about the percentage of investigator-initiated research versus targeted research. We provided links to graphs in the NIH Data Book that show for research program grants and R01 grants awards made in response to targeted announcements make up less than 20% of the total awards. Then, we received the following comment.

Apart from the percentage of awards, how do the dollars play out? What is the percentage of dollars spent on targeted (including contracts, centers, etc) versus investigator-initiated grants? This may be more informative.

Good question. This information is also available in the Data Book. In 2010, targeted grants represented 23% of research project grant funding and 12% of R01 funding. We also have information on the allocation of research funding by mechanism, which will give you a sense of the percent of funding that goes to research project grants, center grants, research career awards, small business grants, and other research.

This is a tough budget time for all federal organizations. NIH is among them, having experienced a relatively flat budget for the past seven years and facing a continuation of this pattern or perhaps even declining budgets for 2012 and beyond. As we consider how to continue to fund outstanding biomedical research during austere times, we are weighing various options, including looking closely at the way we manage NIH resources. As part of the deliberation process, we have put together information on some funding scenarios, such as limiting the number of research program grant awards per investigator, the total amount of awards per investigator, the size of awards, or the amount of salary support paid by NIH.

The biomedical research enterprise is a partnership between NIH and the extramural community, and we don’t expect to make any changes to our processes without an in-depth discussion with you. We are interested in your ideas about how best to manage in complex budgetary times. We have posted the information we gathered about the various options on the OER website. I encourage you to take a look at the data. There are even some interactive graphs where you can visualize the effect of the various options. Then let us know what you think. As always, you are welcome to comment here on the blog, and we’ve also set up an email box specifically to receive feedback on these issues, NIHResourceManagement@nih.gov.

Your feedback is going to be vital as we move forward on what could be a bumpy terrain.  Hopefully, we can have smooth sailing with your creative ideas providing the wind!