Request for Information (RFI): To Solicit Ideas for Common Fund / Roadmap Trans-NIH Strategic Initiatives

We invite you to participate in a process designed to identify major, cross-cutting challenges to health research and to articulate solutions to these challenges. The NIH Roadmap for Medical Research, funded via the NIH Common Fund, is a series of programs that collectively seek to transform the way health research is conducted so that treatment, diagnosis, prevention, and/or understanding of human disease may be accelerated. Roadmap programs are intended to be stimulatory and are therefore supported by the Common Fund for a maximum of 10 years. These programs accept a high degree of risk to approach complex problems in new ways, to develop transformative tools and technologies, and/or to address fundamental knowledge gaps that impede progress in many disease areas. Each Roadmap program cuts across the missions of NIH Institutes and Centers as well across diseases and is expected to accelerate research on many diseases and conditions.

On April 22, 2008, NIH released a Request for Information (RFI) (http://grants.nih.gov/grants/guide/notice-files/NOT-RM-08-014.html) inviting input and ideas from the scientific community, health professionals, patient advocates, and the general public about major cross-cutting challenges and possible solutions. Collecting these ideas is an initial step in the process of identifying a new cohort of Common Fund/Roadmap programs for Fiscal Year 2011. This RFI provides an opportunity for respondents to submit their own ideas. The NIH expects to spend $30–$50 million per year from within the currently projected Roadmap budget for new 5-year initiatives.

More information on this request can be found at: http://nihroadmap.nih.gov/.

We appreciate your time and look forward to your participation in this process.