A Strategy for Strategic Planning

I’ve noted before that NLM has launched a year-long strategic planning process.

Well, we’re in the thick of things now.

We’re hearing from and reaching out to researchers, clinicians, librarians, teachers, first responders, and myriad other stakeholders (including you!), from all over the world.

Hundreds of people from scientific communities to our own staff submitted comments regarding NLM’s priorities and future directions. More than 500 people who work at NLM attended a town hall meeting. We’ve visited three of the universities that host our biomedical informatics research training programs (and plan to visit all of them over the next 18 months). We’ve launched several functional audits, which include an examination of our level of investment in outreach and how best to use the Medical Subject Headings to tag the scientific literature.

Then last week we hosted the first of four stakeholder panels. Each of these panels comprises 15-20 experts in biomedical research, medical informatics, library science, and consumer health. The first panel explored—and will continue exploring—how NLM can accelerate basic biomedical and translational sciences.

Led by Art Levine, Dean of Medicine at the University of Pittsburgh, and guided by our Board of Regents’ strategic planning co-chairs Dan Masys and Jill Taylor, this group is considering:

• the evolving role of NLM in support of global biomedical research;
• how to accommodate the explosive growth of research data in the life sciences;
• providing access to the research data sets underlying publications, to support reproducibility, meta-analysis, and optimal return on public investment in science;
• NLM’s relationship to other NIH Institutes and Centers, including the Library’s role in the Precision Medicine Initiative and other large-scale prospective cohort projects;
• collaborations with extramural organizations to move science forward; and
• future directions of key data resources.

And that’s just one of the panels!

Obviously, this is a big task, so here’s where our strategy comes in.

Often people get concerned that if something doesn’t appear in the strategic plan, it will be lost, but that is not the case here. NLM’s core mission remains strong and vibrant. We’re being ambitious and asking these panels to focus on big gains, audacious goals, the reach-beyond-the-reach that will make NLM an even better platform for discovery. That way, the precious time spent together can focus more on that reach than on reassurance.

So what’s in our core mission?

Our core mission remains
central to who we are.

Looking back to our authorizing legislation, we are charged “to assist the advancement of medical and related sciences and to aid the dissemination and exchange of scientific and other information important to the progress of medicine and to the public health.”

This means that we’ll continue producing PubMed, PubChem, dbGaP, ClinVar, and all the databases used by over 4 million users a day. We’ll continue sponsoring research and training, and we’ll continue outreach so that everyone, everywhere, can use our resources. We’ll continue supporting the application of terminology and messaging standards to ensure the interoperability of health data. And we’ll continue vigorously advocating for knowledge management across the NIH.

Our core mission remains central to who we are.

Our strategy is moving us beyond our core mission to figure out what only NLM can and should do to accelerate the progress of medicine and public health.

Get ready for great visions!