January 24, 2019 (Updated Feb 22, 2019)
On January 2, 2019, The Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD) issued a Request for Information regarding their strategic plan for 2020 – 2024. The plan is expected to strongly influence NICHD’s future research directions and funding decisions, including the level of support for behavioral and brain sciences. Accordingly, it is essential that NICHD hear from our community.
NICHD Director Dr. Diana Bianchi has made updating the plan a major priority and is actively inviting community input. Specifically, the Institute is seeking comments and suggestions on the plan’s six proposed research themes. The draft plan and request for public comments are posted here.
It is important to note that the behavioral and brain sciences were prominent in the 2012 NICHD vision document. However, these sciences have been less represented in some of the materials presented about this new strategic plan both in the descriptions of themes and in this presentation from October 2018.
FABBS will be submitting comments, as will FABBS societies, APA and SRCD. Please consider submitting comments directly to NICHD. Responses from individual researchers or research teams will be very important to demonstrate to Dr. Bianchi and her team the important contributions of our sciences.
Comments can be brief. If applicable, consider providing specific examples of NICHD funded research that clearly serves the mission of NICHD.
Comments are due by February 15, 2019. Responses should be submitted via email to NICHDStrategicPlan@nih.gov. Please indicate “RFI Response” in the subject line of the email.
FABBS has been working in partnership with member societies APA and SRCD, to communicate to NICHD leadership the need to include behavioral and brain research priorities within the plan.
Thank you for considering this important opportunity and for helping to ensure continued NICHD support for behavioral and brain sciences.
Update:
FABBS submitted comments to NIHCD on February 15, 2019, recommending a broad definition including behavioral, emotional, cognitive, and social aspects of child well-being throughout all phases of development, as well as recognizing the context of the changing demographics of our country.
FABBS’ submission can be found here.
