By Yvette Seger

Last week, the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Advisory Committee to the Director (ACD) presented NIH leadership with recommendations for the implementation of the interagency Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Technologies (BRAIN) Initiative and a report on the current status of the physician scientist workforce with recommendations for strengthening this critical pool of investigators.

Introduced by President Obama in May 2013, the BRAIN Initiative engages multiple federal agencies (NIH, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, and the National Science Foundation) and private partners to accelerate the development and application of innovative technologies to better understand neural circuitry and determine new ways to treat, cure, and possibly prevent brain disorders. Shortly after BRAIN’s launch, NIH Director Francis Collins, MD, PhD, established a Working Group within the ACD to develop a ten-year vision for NIH’s efforts, including determining research priorities, short-term (5-year) and long-term (10-year) deliverables, and the anticipated budget for the proposed plan. The final report, which defines deliverables for seven high priority research areas with an estimated total cost of $4.5 billion by fiscal year 2025, received much praise from ACD members and was immediately accepted by Dr. Collins.

Arising from a recommendation of the June 2012 report of the ACD Biomedical Workforce Working Group, a more detailed analysis of the physician scientist workforce was initiated to examine the economic and educational drivers affecting the training and career paths of physician scientists. In its final report, the ACD Physician Scientist Working Group noted that the pool of physician scientists has been stagnant for the past decade and challenges such as educational debt, length and complexity of training, and balancing clinical and research responsibilities deter individuals from pursuing this career path. The Working Group proposed nine recommendations, five of which seek to enhance financial support for training and grant mechanisms to retain physician scientists in the biomedical research workforce. Remaining recommendations are designed to increase diversity of the physician scientist workforce, decrease the gap in R01 award rates between new and established investigators, and develop more effective tools to track training outcomes. The ACD will continue discussion of the report and the recommendations during its next meeting in December.

In addition to the final reports of the working groups, ACD members received updates on initiatives to enhance workforce diversity and on data science from the newest members of NIH leadership: Hannah Valantine, MD, Chief Officer for Scientific Workforce Diversity, and Philip Bourne, PhD, Associate Director for Data Science. Meeting materials and archived webcasts of the meeting proceedings may be accessed here.