Research!America 2021 Accomplishments
As the COVID-19 pandemic continued to challenge our nation and our world, the Research!America alliance promoted the need to fight present health threats and fund the medical research necessary to prepare for future health crises. The great strength of Research!America is our member organizations. We are grateful for your partnership, insights, and commitment to advocate for faster medical and public health progress.
Throughout 2021, we advocated for statutory and regulatory policies that align with public and private sector-fueled R&D to advance progress against deadly and debilitating health issues.
- Successfully advocated for increased NIH, NSF, FDA, CDC, and AHRQ funding in pending Fiscal Year 2022 appropriations bills.
- Ensured our alliance informed the conversations around:
- Standing up ARPA-H (Advanced Research Projects Agency – Health), a proposed incubator for high risk, high reward research.
- 21st Century Cures 2.0 legislation, which would restore pandemic-eroded research funding and advance other key R&D objectives.
- Health care affordability.
- Convened roundtable discussions on clinical trials diversity, sharing insights with NIH and setting the stage for a high-level consensus conference.
- Shared input on efforts to ensure accelerated approval of medical devices is coupled with timely health care coverage of these breakthrough devices.
- Provided members of Congress with frequently updated resources on pandemic-related R&D, including vaccine and treatment trackers.
In partnership with the Lasker Foundation, we released a new report, “Then. Now. Imagine: An A-to-Z look at the diseases, conditions, and disorders that impact our lives.”
- The report provides an overview of 60 diseases and conditions impacting people around the globe, emphasizing the ways medical science has improved outcomes today and holds potential for further progress in the decades ahead.
- All the facts and figures in the report are drawn from Research!America’s “Investment in Research Saves Lives and Money” fact sheet series.
- We had 95 Congressional meetings; provided Congressional testimony focused on NIH, CDC, NSF, FDA, and AHRQ; and authored 59 letters, including an organizational sign-on letter with 208 signatories to Congressional leadership.
Advocacy Awards
The Advocacy Awards were held virtually for the first time since it was established in 1996.
- Honorees from 2020 and 2021 were celebrated for their contributions to medical and public health research and for their valiant work in confronting the COVID-19 pandemic.
- The program incorporated discussion and panels with the honorees allowing us all to better understand their work and engage with their areas of research.
- In addition to our honorees, we were joined by such notable figures as President Joseph Biden, Oprah Winfrey, Renée Fleming, Lester Holt, and many others.
Conversations from the Advocacy Awards and remarks from the 2020 and 2021 honorees are available to view and share.
Johnson and Johnson Endowment
In late 2021, Research!America received a $5 million endowment from Johnson & Johnson to support a new category of Advocacy Awards for 2022, the Outstanding Achievement in Public Health Awards. The awards will be presented annually as part of the Research!America Advocacy Awards Program, and will help raise the profile of public health and its numerous heroes as they fight day in and day out to advance the public good.
Civic Engagement Microgrant Program
2021 marked our 4th year of empowering early-career science civic engagement through competitive microgrants supported by a grant from the Rita Allen Foundation. We had a 50% increase in applicants over last year and will be funding 20 dynamic projects across the country.
Early Career Summit
We developed and hosted our inaugural Early Career Summit, a one-day virtual conference for early career scientists to learn more about civic engagement, science communication, and science policy. Through panel discussions, training, workshops, and networking opportunities, Summit participants learned tools and techniques for the promotion of their own research and engagement with their communities.
Alliance Member Meetings
This year, we focused on delving deeply into the rapid-pace medical discovery deployed in response to COVID-19 and applying that momentum to other health threats. To help keep our members informed in real time, we held 47 alliance member meetings (Access recaps and recordings) featuring exceptional leaders from government, academia, and industry on timely topics as
- Pandemic Forecasting
- Misinformation and Disinformation
- Opioid Abuse
- Combating Health Disparities
- FDA Regulatory Policy
- Overcoming the “Valley of Death” in Biomedical R&D Financing
National Health Research Forum
We hosted the three-day National Health Research Forum virtually, focusing on defining a path through and beyond the pandemic.
- Our Forum attracted an audience of more than 1,300 and featured nearly 100 speakers, including more than 20 sitting and former federal officials.
- Research!America was mentioned in ~400 news articles, and coverage of some of the live conversations made global news.
- Panels and discussions are available to view and share, and we also heard from such notable speakers as First Lady Jill Biden and Olympic Champion Laurie Hernandez.
Surveys
We continued to keep our finger on the pulse of public opinion with a major omnibus survey in January 2021. Our America Speaks!: Poll Data Summary, Volume 21, serves as a resource for elected officials, writing letters to the editor, op-eds, or articles, and advocating for research to improve health.
Public Health Thank You Day
For 16 years, Research!America has organized an effort to say “thank you” to our public health workforce the Monday before Thanksgiving.
- In 2021, the event garnered more engagement than ever before with ~1,200 unique participants and involvement by state and local health departments from 31 different states.
- For the first time, #PHTYD trended in the top 10 hashtags on Twitter, dramatically broadening the reach of our message of thanks.
- The PHTYD webpage provides timely messaging and information on the resilience and skill of the public health workforce and the role public health plays in promoting and protecting the health of our communities.
CRs Stop Progress
In response to a pair of continuing resolutions (CR) locking in last year’s FY21 funding through February 18, 2022, we developed a “count up clock” that tracks how much time has passed since a new budget was scheduled to go into effect on October 1 and didn’t. To accompany this clock, we continue to share tweets emphasizing the need for funding that responds to the urgency of the moment and invests in our future. Use the count up clock and editable tweets to continue to advocate for medical progress.
Science and Technology Action Committee
We continue to support the Science and Technology Action Committee, an initiative that has brought a diversity of thought leaders together to make the case for a far bolder approach to bolstering our nation’s R&D capacity, including significantly increasing the percentage of the GDP devoted to science investment.