NIH Seeks Feedback on Updated Strategic Plan for Data Science

By: Yvette Seger
Wednesday, January 24, 2024
In December, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Office for Data Science Strategy (ODSS) issued a Request for Information (RFI) seeking input on the agency’s updated Strategic Plan for Data Science, 2023–2028. Issued in June 2018, the agency’s inaugural Strategic Plan for Data Science sought to provide a roadmap for the NIH-funded biomedical data science ecosystem and pre-dated the agency’s data management and sharing policy. The current plan seeks to build upon the work of the past five years and apply data to enhance our understanding of fundamental biology and enable clinical applications through five goals:

1. Improve capabilities to sustain the NIH Policy for Data Management and Sharing;
2. Develop programs to enhance human derived data for research;
3. Provide new opportunities in software, computational methods, and artificial intelligence;
4. Support for a federated biomedical research data infrastructure; and
5. Strengthen a broad community in data science.

The RFI seeks stakeholder input on the appropriateness of the plan’s goals and the strategies and tactics proposed to achieve them; partnership opportunities to facilitate attainment of these goals; and emerging research needs and opportunities that should be added to the plan.  Respondents are also encouraged to provide feedback on any other topic(s) they feel is relevant for NIH to consider as it finalizes the plan. Comments are due March 15, 2024, and must be submitted electronically via the submission website.