Washington Update

FASEB Responds to NIH RFI on Measuring and Rewarding Scientific Impact

By: CJ Neely
Thursday, August 27, 2026
FASEB submitted comments on August 17 in response to NIH's Request for Information, NOT-OD-26-087: Measuring and Rewarding Scientific Impact. In the response, FASEB supported NIH’s efforts to more fully recognize the many contributions that advance science but emphasized one central point: rigorous, expert peer review must remain the foundation for evaluating scientific quality. New indicators can provide incredibly useful information, but they should complement, not replace, scientific judgment.

FASEB also cautioned against assessment systems that reward what is easiest to count rather than what matters most. Poorly designed indicators could create unnecessary administrative burdens, encourage unintended behaviors, or disadvantage early-career researchers and smaller or less-resourced institutions.

Across the seven topics included in the RFI, FASEB recommended that NIH:
  • Establish clear expectations for rigor and reproducibility. NIH should clearly define reproducibility and causal research before incorporating them into assessment. FASEB also recommended integrating transparency requirements for generative AI into existing policies and recognizing replication studies as valuable scientific contributions.
  • Recognize data, software, and computational models as scholarly products. These contributions should be considered alongside publications, with greater emphasis on quality, reuse, and scientific value than on the number of resources deposited. Long-term stewardship, including curation, documentation, and maintenance, should also be recognized.
  • Value training and mentorship without creating new assessment systems. NIH should build on existing mechanisms, particularly institutional training programs such as T32 awards, and evaluate training outcomes across academic, industry, government, and other career pathways.
  • Evaluate collaboration based on scientific contributions. Team size and coauthor counts are poor measures of meaningful collaboration. FASEB recommended focusing on documented contributions and pointed to the Contributor Roles Taxonomy, or CRediT, as one tool for recognizing individual contributions within team science.
  • Recognize entrepreneurship and translation as legitimate scientific contributions. Invention disclosures, patents, licensing, and other translational activities can demonstrate scientific impact. FASEB reaffirmed its support for the Bayh-Dole framework and urged NIH to avoid indicators that could disadvantage smaller institutions with fewer technology-transfer resources.
  • Protect foundational scientific exploration. Assessment systems that favor immediate or easily measured outcomes could discourage curiosity-driven research. NIH should recognize well-executed negative and null results and account for the long, unpredictable timelines through which basic research often produces transformative discoveries.
  • Use multiple measures of public impact. No single metric can capture the many ways biomedical research benefits the public. FASEB recommended a balanced set of indicators addressing health outcomes, clinical practice, economic growth, accessibility, public engagement, and public trust. This could include validated economic measures, such as the estimated return of $2.57 for every $1 invested in research, alongside qualitative information and other measures of public benefit.
Together, these recommendations call for a practical, evidence-based approach that recognizes the full range of scientific contributions while protecting expert peer review, minimizing administrative burden, and accounting for differences across disciplines, career stages, and institution types.