Recommendation
7: Create a Director’s Special
Projects Program
A discrete program, the director's Special Projects Program, should be established in OD [Office of
Director] to fund the initiation of high-risk, exceptionally innovative research projects offering high
potential payoff.
“In a broad sense, the Committee imagines the program to be patterned after the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA).”
“Enhancing the Vitality of the
National Institutes of Health: Organizational Change
to Meet New Challenges”
National Research
Council & Institute of Medicine July 2003