NIH Announces FY 2016-2020 Strategic Plan

On December 16, 2015 NIH released its NIH-Wide Strategic Plan, Fiscal Years 2016-2020: Turning Discovery Into Health. The Endocrine Society provided input to the NIH during the strategic planning process and sent a letter to the Director of NIH, Francis Collins, MD, and NIH Principal Deputy Director, Lawrence Tabak, DDS, PhD. In our comments, the Society asked NIH to consider the importance of endocrinology in the context of the Strategic Plan. We emphasized that endocrine science is central to the interrelatedness of fundamental science, health promotion/disease prevention, and treatments/cures; i.e., the three themes of the new Strategic Plan. Tabak responded to our letter, expressing appreciation of the cross-cutting aspects of hormone and endocrine research, and understanding of the need to support interdisciplinary and integrated research projects.

The NIH plan focuses on four essential, interdependent objectives that will help guide NIH’s priorities over the next five years as it pursues its mission of seeking fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and applying that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability. Those objectives are:

1. Advance opportunities in biomedical research in fundamental science, treatment and cures, and health promotion and disease prevention;
2. Foster innovation by setting NIH priorities to enhance nimbleness, consider burden of disease and value of permanently eradicating a disease, and advance research opportunities presented by rare diseases;
3. Enhance scientific stewardship by recruiting and retaining an outstanding biomedical research workforce, enhancing workforce diversity and impact through partnerships, ensuring rigor and reproducibility, optimizing approaches to inform funding decisions, encouraging innovation, and engaging in proactive risk management practices; and
4. Excel as a federal science agency by managing for results by developing the “science of science,” balancing outputs with outcomes, conducting workforce analyses, continually reviewing peer review, evaluating steps to enhance rigor and reproducibility, reducing administrative burden, and tracking effectiveness of risk management in decision making.

The plan concludes with a bold vision for NIH, listing some specific achievements and advances that the Agency will strive to deliver over the next five years.

Over the next five years, NIH leadership will evaluate the Agency’s progress, in meeting the objectives laid out in the strategic plan, which will be a living document that will be open to refinements throughout its life-cycle. The plan is designed to complement the NIH’s Institutes, Centers, and Offices’ (ICOs) individual strategic plans that are aligned with their congressionally mandated missions. During this time, the Endocrine Society will reach out to NIH leadership to express our recommendations and concerns. Society leaders will also meet with Institute directors to share our feedback.

More information is available on the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan website.

Becker is the Chief Policy Officer at the Endocrine Society.