Event Month: February

NIH, with the University of California Biological Safety Officer’s Working Group, BioNet, and the Arizona Biosafety Alliance will be hosting the sixth in a series of public listening sessions to obtain stakeholder feedback on NIH’s effort to modernize and strengthen biosafety oversight.

Priority for providing oral comments at this meeting will be given to stakeholders located in: California, Arizona, Nevada, Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Hawaii.

NIH Videocast

https://videocast.nih.gov/watch/c1b34345-118d-11f1-9f14-124f0a52e769

Draft Agenda

Listening Session 6 Draft Agenda

Meeting Flyer

Listening Session 6 Flyer

Introductory Slides

Listening Session 6 Slides

Public Comments

NIH and its partners encourage any interested individual to sign up to provide oral comments during the listening session.  All comments offered at the listening session are welcome and will be considered, including topics covered at previous sessions. Feedback on the following topics is particularly encouraged.   

• Opportunities to improve IBC functions and advance transparency 
• Roles and responsibilities of institutions, IBCs, investigators, and NIH to strengthen compliance and transparency 
• Ways to strengthen coordination between IBCs and other institutional review bodies (e.g., Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees)
  • Infrastructure and communication 
  • Liaison members between committees 
• Options for review and approval of lowering requests 
• Requests to lower containment for research involving RG3 or RG4 agents or conducted at BL3 or BL4
  •  NIH review and approval of all requests  
  • NIH review and approval of initial request, then eligible for IBCs to approve subsequent requests after risk assessment of specific experiments 
• Requests to lower containment from BL2 to BL1
  • NIH review and approval
  • IBC review and approval

Registration

Registration for this event is now closed

NIH Videocast

https://videocast.nih.gov/watch/0d41368d-17db-11f1-9f14-124f0a52e769

Draft Agenda

Listening Session 5 Draft Agenda

Meeting Flyer

Listening Session 5 Flyer

Introductory Slides

Listening Session 5 Slides

Public Comments

NIH and its partners encourage any interested individual to sign up to provide oral comments during the listening session.  All comments offered at the listening session are welcome and will be considered, including topics covered at previous sessions. Feedback on the following topics is particularly encouraged.   

• The utility of agent risk groups (RGs) as a starting point in determining appropriate containment for specific experiments 
• Opportunities to improve IBC functions and advance transparency
• Committee activities: Options for expedited reviews (e.g., chair/less than full committee, BSO) including situations or types of research, if any, where expedited reviews would be appropriate
• Roles and responsibilities of institutions, IBCs, investigators, and NIH to strengthen compliance and transparency 
  • Requirements for membership (e.g., flexibility in required expertise, local members) 
  • Requirements for improved public access to meetings and minutes 
  • Requirements for reporting of incidents or violations to NIH (and the threshold for incident reporting) 
• Ways to strengthen coordination between IBCs and other institutional review bodies (e.g., Institutional Animal Care and Use Committees) 

Registration

Registration for this event is now closed

NIH will host a virtual, public listening session to hear community feedback on the NIH Plan to Enhance Public Access to the Results of NIH-Supported Research (NIH Public Access Plan). The NIH Public Access Plan is currently available for public comment through a Request for Information that NIH issued in February 2023. Written RFI responses on the NIH Public Access Plan will continue to be accepted until April 24, 2023.

Webcast

• https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=49504

Agenda

• Listening Session Agenda

Supplemental Information

• NIH Public Access Plan RFI
• Comment Form for NIH Public Access Plan RFI

Information on How to Provide Oral Comments

Members of the public can sign-up to provide oral comments at the listening session by emailing [email protected].  When requesting to provide oral comments, please provide:

• Name
• Professional Affiliation (optional/if applicable)
• Topic(s) of Comment

The RFI for the NIH Public Access Plan lists specific areas of interest for which NIH requests additional feedback: (1) equity in publication opportunities for NIH-supported investigators, (2) equity in access and accessibility of publications, (3) methods for monitoring evolving costs and impacts on affected communities, and (4) considerations to increase findability and transparency of research. Please indicate if your comments involve any of these topics. Comments do not need to be limited to the four topic areas listed in the RFI comment form, but comments should relate to one or more aspects of the NIH Public Access Plan.

Slots for public comments will be provided in the order they are received until all slots have been filled. Requests to provide comments at the listening session must be received no later than April 10, 2023.

Please note that the listening session will be broadcast live, recorded, and posted on the OSP website, and a transcript of the listening session will be prepared. The transcript of the listening session may also be posted to the OSP website without redaction. As such, please do not include any information in your comments that you do not wish to make public. Proprietary, classified, confidential, or sensitive information should also not be included in your comments.

The NIH will be holding a workshop on Feb 27 on Using Public Engagement to Inform the Use of Data in Biomedical Research. This workshop will contextualize how public feedback can help inform the use of new types of data (e.g., wearable devices, smart sensors, social media), new types of analyses (e.g., Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning), and data linkage and aggregation in research. The information discussed will be used to help inform deliberations on the NExTRAC’s charge related to novel types and uses of data.  

The meeting will outline important themes from multiple community conversations NIH has hosted across the country on these topics. It will also feature discussions from ethicists, biomedical researchers, technology engineers and developers, public health experts, and clinician researchers who might utilize novel technologies to generate data. 

Opportunities to raise questions for discussion will be provided for members of the public who attend virtually.

Webcast

https://videocast.nih.gov/watch=49084

Agenda

Meeting Agenda

Background Information for the Workshop
Background Information for the Workshop (Spanish)

Community Conversation Summary Feedback
Community Conversation Summary Feedback (Spanish)

Workshop Participant Biographies