Challenge Grant Applications and General Government News

Predictably, the National Institutes of Health is reportedly overwhelmed by the submission of approximately 20,000 Challenge Grant applications, which is more than double the amount typically received in a normal review period. NIH is supposed to award the grants by the end of September. In order to review this number of grants in such a short time period, it has recruited more than 15,000 extra reviewers and will take an editorial board-style approach. One obvious issue with so many applications and reviewers is that the pool of reviewers comes from the same pool of applicants. This creates potentially serious conflicts of interest, and unprecedented headaches for the NIH staff to find reviewers with expertise in a particular field, but who did not submit grant applications to the NIH branch that represents their field of interest!

Furthermore, grants are primarily submitted through the website Grants.gov, which accepts grant applications from 26 federal agencies including the Department of Health and Human Services, Department of Energy, and National Science Foundation. The system is already inundated with around 20,000 submissions, causing countless submission problems ranging from generally sluggish performance to system crashes. With the application deadline of May 29th looming, many more applications are expected, along with additional problems. As alternatives to Grants.gov, DoE is accepting applications through their e-Center portal, NSF is accepting applications through Fastlane, and other agencies have established alternative mechanisms of grant submission. However, it would not be terribly surprising if the grant awards were delayed due to the unprecedented number of submissions.

In related news, NIH is examining its financial conflict of interest policies following a number of high-profile incidents involving extramural researchers. Comments are due by July 7.

Finally, in accordance with President Obama’s Open Government Initiative, the federal website Data.gov has been created. The website has the following to say:

The purpose of Data.gov is to increase public access to high value, machine readable datasets generated by the Executive Branch of the Federal Government.

As a priority Open Government Initiative for President Obama’s administration, Data.gov increases the ability of the public to easily find, download, and use datasets that are generated and held by the Federal Government. Data.gov provides descriptions of the Federal datasets (metadata), information about how to access the datasets, and tools that leverage government datasets. The data catalogs will continue to grow as datasets are added. Federal, Executive Branch data are included in the first version of Data.gov.

Participatory Democracy

Public participation and collaboration will be one of the keys to the success of Data.gov. Data.gov enables the public to participate in government by providing downloadable Federal datasets to build applications, conduct analyses, and perform research. Data.gov will continue to improve based on feedback, comments, and recommendations from the public and therefore we encourage individuals to suggest datasets they’d like to see, rate and comment on current datasets, and suggest ways to improve the site.

Goal

A primary goal of Data.gov is to improve access to Federal data and expand creative use of those data beyond the walls of government by encouraging innovative ideas (e.g., web applications). Data.gov strives to make government more transparent and is committed to creating an unprecedented level of openness in Government. The openness derived from Data.gov will strengthen our Nation’s democracy and promote efficiency and effectiveness in Government.

Some existing datasets relate to Health/Nutrition and Science/Technology. It will be interesting to see what types of datasets appear on this site in the future.