The U.S. National Institutes of Health (NIH) has published its first Strategic Plan for Data Science and announced plans to hire a chief data strategist.
The strategic plan offers a road map for modernizing the NIH-funded biomedical data science ecosystem, according to the NIH. The agency said it will begin implementing its strategy over the course of 2019 and that some elements of the plan are already underway. In the meantime, the NIH will continue to seek community input during the implementation phase.
In the strategic plan, the NIH describes how it will work to address the following:
- Findability, interconnectivity, and interoperability of NIH-funded biomedical datasets and resources
- Integration of existing data management tools and development of new ones
- Universalization of innovative algorithms and tools created by academic scientists into enterprise-ready resources that meet industry standards of ease of use and efficiency of operation
- Growing costs of data management
The NIH also said that it will hire a chief data strategist in an effort to advance NIH data science across the extramural and intramural research communities. This position will guide the development and implementation of the NIH's data science activities and provide leadership within the broader biomedical research data ecosystem. The job vacancy announcement can be found here. Applications will be reviewed beginning on July 9 and will be accepted until the position is filled.
