Freedom of Information Act Office
IC Directors' Meeting Highlights
November 05, 2007
| To: | IC Directors |
| From: | Kerry Brink, Assistant to the Deputy Director, NIH |
| Subject: | IC Directors Meeting Highlights—August 23, 2007 |
Discussion Items
I. FTE Analysis
Ms. Coleen Barros, Office of Management, presented the revised FY 2008 operating and budgeted FTE levels. The FTE levels include a two percent operating float to help NIH manage its overall budget ceiling and allow flexibility.
IC base levels will be adjusted according to:
- Historical usage;
- Special focus areas;
- High priority program increases;
- IC requests.
The operating FTE formula ensures that ICs do not receive less than their FY 2007 level in FY 2008.
II. Proposal from the National Health Council (NHC) to Establish a Database for Unfunded Research
Ms. Joanne Goodnight, Office of Extramural Research (OER), explained that the National Health Council (NHC) proposal is to create a database to house basic application information (provided by the applicant) that NHC members and other funding organizations can search. Ms. Goodnight described the current challenge of numerous applications, tight budgets, competitive pay lines and difficulty for investigators and applications of merit to get funded was questioned initially by Wendy Chaite, a member of the NIH Director's Council of Public Representatives (COPR), of whether there was a way to inform potential funding organizations of meritorious but unfunded applications.
Ms. Goodnight pointed out that many of NHC’s members fund research and recognize scientific need and opportunity. The approach of the proposal includes:
- NHC creates a dedicated web site to host the database;
- Applicants register, create a password, and enter information;
- Funding organizations register to use/search the web site;
- Funding organizations contact investigators to pursue projects of interest;
- Data automatically deleted one year after initial entry;
- Investigators notified and invited to re-enter data with any updates.
The Communication Plan will include a NHC bi-monthly e-newsletter Council Currents, List Serv of Chief Medical Officers/Research Directors, meetings, briefings, conferences, NHC website, print and electronic announcements to nonprofit health organizations, foundations, media sources and media interviews. Additionally, notices will be placed in the NIH Guide, Nexus and OERInsider. Implementation and outreach is expected to take place between November 2007 through January 2008. Periodically, NHC will contact web site visitors and investigators who populated the database for feedback to identify strengths and weaknesses of the database, its usefulness and ease of use. After one year, an email survey will be conducted of all NHC nonprofit members to measure its effectiveness and to make modifications as necessary.
IC Directors underscored that the communication plan is a key factor in serving to educate and to attract young investigators, as well as, informing other foundations. IC Directors concurred that the data base mutually benefits investigators, funding organizations, NHC and NIH and concurred to move forward with the proposal.
Kerry Brink
cc: OD Senior Staff
Social Media Links