NIH Director Discusses Agency Priorities with Advisory Council

By: Yvette Seger
Thursday, April 24, 2025
On Monday, April 21, Jayanta “Jay” Bhattacharya, MD, PhD, the new director of the National Institutes of Health (NIH), provided an overview of his top five priorities for the agency as part of the public session a rescheduled convening of the NIH Council of Councils. Overseen by NIH’s Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI), the Council of Councils provides guidance to NIH leadership regarding initiatives that span individual Institutes and Centers.

In his presentation, Bhattacharya highlighted changes to better link NIH with priorities of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), namely a new initiative to examine factors influencing prevalence of autism spectrum disorder that would accelerate discovery through multi-faceted data collection and sharing and milestone-driven approach. Most of the talk, however, focused on his priorities for improving NIH’s ability to achieve its mission of improving human health. These include:

• Improving population health, particularly improving prevention, treatment, and cures for chronic diseases;
• Ensuring results from NIH-funded research are replicable and generalizable; 
• Fostering innovation and embracing new approaches;
• Maintaining the highest ethical standards; and 
• Respectful of dissenting perspectives.

During the extensive Q&A with council members, Bhattacharya faced questions regarding the proposed draft Fiscal Year 2026 HHS budget leaked to the press on April 16. As expected, these questions were deflected and left relatively unanswered. Council members also pressed Bhattacharya on the research workforce needs to fulfill his goals, noting the termination of numerous programs to support workforce development earlier in the month. Similarly, when the disconnect between the administration’s executive orders eliminating diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) and the goal to improve health for all Americans was raised, Bhattacharya stated that the executive orders are “misunderstood,” are aimed at eliminating DEI as a “political ideology” rather than altering the study of chronic diseases. 

However, later that same day, NIH issued a Guide notice updating the current terms and conditions for all NIH grants, cooperative agreements, and other transaction awards requiring awardees to certify that they “do not and will not during the term of award…operate any programs that advance or promote DEI, DEIA, or discriminatory equity ideology.” The updated term is effective immediately for all new, renewal, supplement, or continuation awards issued on or after April 21, 2025.

Meeting materials and the link to the archived videocast are available here.