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NIMH updates Strategic Research Priorities

The NIMH recently updated is Strategic Research Priorities, which provide guidance to grantees, potential grant applicants and staff for research design and implementation.

Updates to the research priorities were developed by the NIMH to ensure that the institution’s priorities continued to expand research across its four Strategic Objectives, reflect the current scientific field, address research gaps and promote scientific discovery.

Outlined in the 2015 Strategic Plan for Research, the four objectives for scientific research include:

• Define the mechanisms of complex behaviors;
• Chart mental illness trajectories to determine when, where and how to intervene;
• Aim for prevention and cures; and
• Strengthen public health impact of NIMH-supported research.

The updated priorities continue to emphasize the role of the environment, prevention through early intervention, sex as a biological variable, mental health disparities and global perspectives of mental health.

Further, Strategic Research Priorities highlight the NIMH’s commitment to data sharing, use of common data elements and priorities such as the Research Domain Criteria project, the Brain Research through Advancing Innovative Neurotechnologies Initiative, and the NIMH’s experimental therapeutics.