APA urges broader National Institutes of Health measures of scientific impact

APA submitted comments to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) (PDF, 388KB)opens in new window in response to the NIH Request for Information on Measuring and Rewarding Scientific Impact, Notice Number NOT-OD-26-087opens in new window on behalf of the association. APA urged NIH to modernize how it measures and rewards scientific impact, emphasizing that research assessment should move beyond publication counts, journal impact factors, and citation metrics. APA Executive Lead Psychologist for Science Adrienne Stith, PhD, called for a broader, field-sensitive approach that values rigor, transparency, credibility, mentorship, collaboration, and contributions that improve health, policy, education, and public trust.

APA welcomed NIH’s effort to move beyond narrow productivity measures and toward assessment systems that reward research quality, credible methods, inclusive mentorship, collaboration, and public benefit. The association emphasized that psychology and behavioral science have helped lead efforts to strengthen replication, reproducibility, transparency, and credibility in research. These practices are especially important because psychological science informs clinical care, public health, education, prevention, workplace well-being, and public policy, Stith emphasized.

APA recommended a multidimensional approach that recognizes diverse forms of scientific contribution across career stages, institution types, research methods, and communities served, including:

• Reward rigor and credibility. Recognize transparent methods, strong study design, appropriate preregistration, replication, robustness analyses, and clear reporting of limitations.
• Value open and reusable outputs. Treat responsibly shared data, code, software, measures, protocols, and analytic workflows as substantive scientific contributions.
• Recognize mentorship and team science. Include trainee development, inclusive research environments, shared infrastructure, and collaborative leadership as indicators of impact.
• Broaden the definition of impact. Account for contributions to health outcomes, prevention, clinical practice, education, public policy, community well-being, and public trust.
• Guard against unintended consequences. Pilot and validate new indicators to ensure they are fair, sensitive to disciplinary differences, and do not discourage innovation or add administrative burden.

Stith cautioned that traditional quantitative indicators can create incentives that work against quality. She recommended that NIH use narrative contribution statements and portfolio-based assessments that allow investigators to explain the significance, credibility, and cumulative value of their most meaningful work. She also urged NIH to distinguish clearly among reproducibility, robustness, replicability, and trustworthiness in application instructions, review criteria, reviewer guidance, progress reports, and renewal decisions.

Stith highlighted psychology’s leadership in developing tools that improve research credibility, including approaches to open science, replication, transparency, and structured credibility assessment. APA also encouraged NIH to implement new impact measures cautiously, with stakeholder input, reviewer guidance, discipline-specific flexibility, pilot testing, and regular evaluation. New indicators should be validated before broad adoption to ensure that they strengthen assessment without discouraging innovation or disadvantaging researchers who work with sensitive data, community-engaged methods, or resource-constrained settings.

In closing, Stith emphasized NIH impact measures should reward credible, useful, and equitable science that advances knowledge while strengthening public trust.

For more information, email Angela L. Sharpe.