# Presentation: 267464

## Strategies to identify and increase innovative research

**Alan M. Krensky, M.D., Director **
**Office of Portfolio Analysis and Strategic Initiatives**
**Deputy Director, National Institutes of Health**
**Department of Health and Human Services**

**NIDA Advisory Council ****February 6, 2008**

- Report on the OPASI “Fostering Innovation”
- Workshop of December 5, 2007

## NIH OD sponsors several new programs designed to foster innovation

- Pioneer Awards– established PIs with outstanding track records
- New Innovators Awards – new PIs with outstanding ideas
- Grand Challenges (Roadmap):
- Interdisciplinary Research - original research teams attacking important questions
- CTSAs – a new approach to translational research, transforming the way academic institutions value clinical research

## High Risk-High Reward Research

- HR-HR Demonstration Oversight Group
- Mandated by 2006 NIH Reform Act
- Griff Rodgers, Alan Krensky, co-chairs
- Nora Volkow - member
- Other IC Directors: Steve Katz, Larry Tabak
- Other members: Carl Roth (NHLBI), Diane Frasier (OM), Sam Shekar (OER), Katherine Manzi )GC), Mark Rohrbaugh (OTT) and Lynn Hudson (OSP)
- To define the portfolio, recommend strategic initiatives and evaluate HR-HR science at NIH.

## Other approaches to identify and increase innovative research

- 	Report on the OPASI “Fostering Innovation”
- 	Workshop of December 5, 2007
- 	Alan M. Krensky, NIH
-  	Keith Yamamoto, UCSF
- 	co-chairs

## Strategies to identify and increase innovative research

| Peter Agre | Duke University |
| --- | --- |
| Bonnie Bassler | Princeton University |
| Charles Beever | Booz Allen Hamilton |
| David Botstein | Princeton University |
| Joan Brugge | Harvard University |
| Thomas Cech | Howard Hughes Medical Institute |
| Charles Cooney | Massachusetts Institute of Technology |
| Mark Fitzsimmons | MacArthur Fellows Program |
| Erich Jarvis | Duke University |
| Judith Kimble | University of Wisconsin |
| David Korn | Association of American Medical Colleges |
| Gerald Pollack | University of Washington |
| Gerald Rubin | Howard Hughes Medical Institute |
| Irving Weissman | Stanford University |

- Panelists

## Innovation vs. Transformation

- Innovative research:
-        original, inventive, paradigm-shifting
- Transformative research:
-       revolutionary, disruptive, paradigm-generating
- Culture
- Structure
- Institutional policies
- Degrees of freedom

## Factors that discourage innovation

- NIH grants process, including peer review process
- Expansion of soft money positions during the “doubling”
- Flattening of budget encourages conservatism

## Environments in which innovation thrives

- Importance of research institutions in fostering innovation
- Support investigators’ salaries with “hard” money = more time and more freedom
- Focus on intellectual endeavors of faculty rather than grant acquisition

## TOP TEN Recommendations

- Separate grant mechanism based upon track record
- Increase career awards – space for discovery
- Create a separate mechanism for “transformative” (disruptive, paradigm changing) research
- Foster new ideas outside the mainstream
- Recruit generalists to review applications
- Separate salaries from research grants
- Awards for career years 3–9
- Reform intramural NIH to focus on high risk research
- Promote local environments that encourage risk taking
- Fill the gap between basic discovery and commercialization

## 1. Separate grant mechanism based upon track record

- A more retrospectively focused reward system would be more successful in funding innovative research since innovation is thought to be easier to recognize than to predict.
- Broadening a program like the NIH MERIT Award program could encourage creative principal investigators by eliminating the burden of continually writing grants.

## 2. Increase career awards – space for discovery

- Would allow freedom for discovery research.
- Would decrease the direct link between salary support and the research award, which encourages investigators to write conservative proposals.

## 3. Create a separate mechanism for “transformative” research

- The Pioneer award and other initiatives are designed to fund transformative research.
- The panel envisioned a separate mechanism, with a shorter budget period, for investigator-initiated proposals that the PI sees as transformative.

## 4. Foster new ideas outside the mainstream

- Support PIs to explore underappreciated ideas.
- Proposals for new discoveries would need to be potentially momentous but would require no preliminary data.

## 5. Recruit generalists to review applications

- Could emphasize potential impact by selecting projects with broad appeal.
- May reduce bias by removing competitors as reviewers

## 6. Separate salaries from research grants

- In addition to providing more career awards, provide additional support for new PIs, technicians, graduate students and postdoctoral fellows so the success of the research application does not determine the job security of the lab staff.

## 7. Awards for career years 3–9

- Fund all newly independent investigators with substantial guaranteed institutional support for 7-10 years without a renewal application.
- Subsequent funding would be based upon past track record, rather than specific aims.
- Would allow new PIs to pursue research without the demands of writing grant applications.

## 8. Reform intramural NIH to focus on high risk research

- The NIH intramural program has many aspects that foster innovation, including a separation of salary from grant support, little emphasis on projected plans, freedom to explore discoveries, and time to think.
- Several of the panelists felt that NIH should leverage the potential of the intramural program by recruiting and retaining the most innovative investigators and culling others.

## 9. Promote local environments that encourage risk taking

- The NIH and universities could work together to give new investigators stability through the tenure decision, allowing them the unfettered freedom to build their research programs and investigate more innovative, but potentially risky, ideas.
- Ensuring that the tenure promotion criteria at all institutions recognizes innovative and transformative work would create a culture that nurtured paradigm-shifting research.
- For more senior scientists, both the universities and the NIH could work to reduce the amount of time spent on  committees, some of which are presently mandated by law.

## 10. Fill the gap between basic discovery and commercialization

- This proposed new program would fill the gap between early stage innovations and their acceptance as good investment opportunities, facilitating the movement of good ideas into the marketplace.
- Although the NIH already sponsors many small business (SBIR and STRR proposals) some felt the need for a transition phase.

## A healthy ecosystem

- Government, academia, philanthropy, industry need better alignment and cooperation.
- Sever direct ties between research grant and salary.
- Encourage excellent scientists to take leadership roles.
- Encourage risk-taking by providing more pilot grants and bridge grants from years 3-9 of career.