December 4, 2023
Purpose
This Notice is a Request for Information (RFI) inviting feedback on a proposed update to the NIH mission statement. As the largest public funder of biomedical and behavioral research in the world, NIH works to turn scientific discoveries into better health for all. This RFI will inform NIH's efforts to update its mission statement to ensure that it reflects the NIH mission as accurately as possible.
Background
NIH is the nation’s medical research agency — making important discoveries that improve health and save lives. NIH’s current mission statement is “to seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.”
In 2021, NIH established the Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) Working Group on Diversity, Subgroup on Individuals with Disabilities to dedicate time and resources to identify strategies to support individuals with disabilities. The subgroup issued a report in December 2022 that contains several recommendations, including updating the NIH mission statement. The ACD adopted the Working Group’s recommendations and provided them to the NIH Director. The report stated, “One immediate action for the NIH to support disability inclusion is to remove the language of ‘reducing disability’ from the NIH mission statement. The current mission statement could be interpreted as perpetuating ableist beliefs that disabled people are flawed and need to be ‘fixed’.”
To address this suggestion, NIH Leadership committed to evaluate the mission statement, particularly reviewing the inclusion of the phrase “reduce [...] disability”, and to update it to better reflect the current and future vision for the agency. Following discussions among NIH Leadership and with NIH subject matter experts, a proposed revised mission statement was developed.
Information Requested
This RFI invites input from interest groups throughout the scientific research, advocacy, and clinical practice communities, those employed by NIH or at institutions receiving NIH support, and the public, on a proposed revised mission statement. The bolded language reflects differences between the current and proposed mission statements.
Current NIH Mission Statement
- “To seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and the application of that knowledge to enhance health, lengthen life, and reduce illness and disability.”
Proposed revised NIH mission statement
- “To seek fundamental knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and to apply that knowledge to optimize health and prevent or reduce illness for all people.”
Input sought about the proposed revised mission statement includes, but is not limited to, the following:
1. Feedback on whether the proposed new mission statement reflects the goals and objectives as outlined in the NIH-Wide Strategic Plan for Fiscal Years 2021-2025.
- Objective 1: Advancing Biomedical and Behavioral Sciences
- Objective 2: Developing, Maintaining, and Renewing Scientific Research Capacity
- Objective 3: Exemplifying and Promoting the Highest Level of Scientific Integrity, Public Accountability, and Social Responsibility in the Conduct of Science
AMIA Recommendation
The revised NIH mission statement could consider language to also reflect the agency’s Objective 2: Developing, Maintaining, and Renewing Scientific Research Capacity and Objective 3: Exemplifying and Promoting the Highest Level of Scientific Integrity, Public Accountability, and Social Responsibility in the Conduct of Science to promote scientific research and evidence-based knowledge.
AMIA sees the need for NIH to include language for research as a necessary component of NIH’s mission to fully encompass the strategic plan. There are multiple examples within the strategic plan highlighting the support for evidence-based scientific research. In Objective 2, the section Supporting Research Resources and Infrastructure, NIH states, “For the biomedical research workforce to succeed in moving discovery forward, it requires a scientific infrastructure that is expansive, durable, and capable of quickly integrating state-of-the-art resources that are available to all… Much of NIH’s efforts in resource building focuses on providing researchers with the underlying evidence needed to design impactful research programs.” In Objective 3, in section Making Evidence-Informed Decisions, NIH states, “NIH is committed to enhancing scientific stewardship by optimizing approaches that generate evidence used to inform programmatic, operational, and policy decisions.”
2. Suggestions for specific language that could be added to the proposed mission statement and why.
AMIA Recommendation
Specific language that could be included to the revised mission statement: “To seek applied fundamental evidence-based knowledge about the nature and behavior of living systems and to apply that knowledge to optimize health and prevent or reduce illness for all people.”
This added language couples funding, basic research and application to health and healthcare. NIH’s funding for research is language to consider along with the supply of health research available for the public to view through the National Library of Medicine’s (NLM) efforts. NLM has expanded biomedical and information systems such as PubMed and PubMed Central, ClinicalTrials.gov, GenBank, and the Sequence Read Archive which is a significant resource to public health, health research, and health technology.
3. Feedback on any specific language that could be removed from the proposed mission
Draft Recommendation
Did not answer.