|
The National Academies are composed of the National Academy of Sciences, the National Academy of Engineering, the Institute of Medicine, and the National Research Council. All are non-profit organizations of experts, drawn from across scientific disciplines and from around the country to provide science, technology, and health policy advice to the nation. They conduct studies (typically consensus reports and surveys of disciplines) and host roundtables and forums, with the support of approximately 1,100 staff members. Although established by Congress, the Academies are funded through contracts for their services, mostly by federal agencies that use the Academies as a trusted resource for independent and objective analysis.
NIH has a standing contract with the National Academies that allows NIH Institutes, Centers, and the Office of the Director to quickly and easily fund Academy activities to support the NIH mission. The Office of the Director’s Office of Science Policy Analysis manages this contract, serves as liaison between the Academies and the NIH Institutes, Centers, and Offices interested in funding tasks, and thus steers the Academies’ work and reports to better serve the NIH mission and fulfill U.S. scientific, health, and policy needs.
The contract is not a source of funds. Rather, it is an agreement that NIH will fund future Academy activities. The contract allows NIH to issue “task orders,” which can be added to the existing contract without going through the more arduous process of creating a new contract for each task. This enables NIH and the Academies to move more swiftly to address pressing policy concerns, emerging public health issues, and scientific opportunities. The steps involved in using the contract include the following:
- Obtain a proposal from the National Academies (proposals can be solicited by NIH, initiated by the Academies, or mandated by Congress);
- Identify an NIH staff member to oversee the activity (the “task leader”);
- Conduct a technical evaluation of the proposal;
- Resolve all questions about the scope, approach, deliverables, and cost of the activity;
- Prepare and sign a task order;
- Transfer funds from the funding office to the contract;
- Monitor the progress of the task.
Since the creation of the contract in 1994, over 200 task orders have been issued.
Examples include:
- Transforming the Case for American Commitment to Global Health
- Dietary Supplement Use by Military Personnel
- Recognition and Alleviation of Distress in Laboratory Animals
- Capitalizing on Science, Technology, and Information: An Assessment of the SBIR Program
- Meetings of the Chemical Sciences Roundtable
The resulting reports from these task orders can be found at the National Library of Medicine link: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/bookshelf/br.fcgi?book=napcollect.
If you plan to enlist the services of the National Academies and are interested in using this task order contract to expedite funding, please contact Project Officer Sam Crowe at samuel.crowe@nih.gov or (301) 402-7465.
|
