While the agency moves to identify long-term goals, critics question the plan's feasibility as well as its fairness
More than a year into the process, an atmosphere of fear, mistrust, and even hostility is clouding the formulation of the National Institutes of Health's long-range strategic plan.

Although the process is alive and advancing, there are skeptics in the biomedical research community whose perceptions of what a strategic planning process is, what it should be, and what it can accomplish differ from NIH's. And while an increasing number of individuals now say that the idea of a strategic plan for NIH is good, there are those who doubt that a comprehensive plan actually will evolve.

"From the beginning, there was concern about the way the strategic plan was being developed," says an official in the public affairs division of the American Society for Microbiology. "We now have our concern as to...

Interested in reading more?

Become a Member of

Receive full access to digital editions of The Scientist, as well as TS Digest, feature stories, more than 35 years of archives, and much more!
Already a member?