I did decide to look into who’s behind ResearchAmerica but I think it’s fair to notice that Liz Feld also doesn’t have a science background.
Michael Stebbins (genetics PhD, career in science, science journalism and science policy): “It has tremendous potential at NIH” but various caveats
I don’t think that’s a judgement about the merits of it being at NIH. It’s accepting that the decision happened and wanting to influence the particulars. The battlelines being whether or not it’s part of the common fund and a desire to for “program directors have to have tremendous flexibility” and “ARPA-H director has to have the authority to make decisions”. To the extend that those are the goals being outside of the NIH would help with them.
The thing that matters isn’t whether ARPA-H is within NIH but whether it has the authority to make independent decisions.
I did decide to look into who’s behind ResearchAmerica but I think it’s fair to notice that Liz Feld also doesn’t have a science background.
I don’t think that’s a judgement about the merits of it being at NIH. It’s accepting that the decision happened and wanting to influence the particulars. The battlelines being whether or not it’s part of the common fund and a desire to for “program directors have to have tremendous flexibility” and “ARPA-H director has to have the authority to make decisions”. To the extend that those are the goals being outside of the NIH would help with them.
The thing that matters isn’t whether ARPA-H is within NIH but whether it has the authority to make independent decisions.