New Models of Data Stewardship

The New Models of Data Stewardship (NMDS) program is designed to enhance biomedical discovery and improve efficiency through new digital data management strategies. These strategies contribute to NIH efforts to develop and sustain a modern biomedical data ecosystem as described in the NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science. They also aim to make data for research findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR) in the cloud.

The way the biomedical research community interacts with data is changing. Advances in storage, communications, and processing have led to new research methods and tools not possible a decade ago. Data-related innovations like machine learning and artificial intelligence may yield transformative changes for biomedical research. Applying data innovations to biomedical data will drive new discoveries that enable more accurate disease risk prediction, tailored diagnostics, and prevention and treatment strategies.

There is immense potential for biomedical data and data-related innovation to advance human health. We stand at an inflection point, but there are still considerable challenges to realizing that potential.

NIH faces multiple challenges to maximizing the utility of biomedical data

To address these challenges, the Common Fund is supporting an integrated set of activities to develop and test new strategies for data management. The New Models of Data Stewardship program began in fiscal year 2017 and will run through fiscal year 2020. It consists of two initiatives working together to establish best practices, standards, and infrastructure to address the challenges above.

The NIH Data Commons Pilot Phase is testing ways to store, access, and share biomedical and behavioral data and associated tools in the cloud so they are findable, accessible, interoperable, and reusable (FAIR).

The Science and Technology Research Infrastructure for Discovery, Experimentation, and Sustainability (STRIDES) Initiative is establishing partnerships with commercial cloud service providers (CSPs) to reduce economic and technological barriers to accessing and computing on large biomedical data sets to accelerate biomedical advances.

The New Models of Data Stewardship program is a trans-NIH endeavor, meant to benefit all NIH Institutes and Centers. However, it is still only one of many data science initiatives at the NIH, all of which contribute to the NIH Strategic Plan for Data Science.

The NIH Data Commons Pilot Phase and the STRIDES Initiative are working together to enhance biomedical discovery and improve efficiency through new data management strategies.