| Dear Subscriber: The National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (NIDCR) is drafting its Strategic Plan for 2021-2026 to help guide the research it supports over the next five years. In case you missed it, on July 15, NIDCR issued a Request for Information (RFI) inviting feedback on our five strategic priorities, contained in this email. Under the leadership of Dr. Rena D'Souza, who was sworn in as the new Director of NIDCR in October 2020, NIDCR has also updated its mission and created a new overarching vision for the future, as well as guiding principles to steer the institute and help direct and execute the strategic plan and your evaluation of our priorities: VISION: We aspire to transform human lives through scientific discoveries and innovations that advance dental, oral, and craniofacial (DOC) health and overall well-being for all. MISSION: The updated mission of NIDCR is to advance fundamental knowledge about DOC health and disease and translate these findings into prevention, early detection, and treatment strategies that improve overall health for all individuals and communities across the lifespan. GUIDING PRINCIPLES: Our core values ground our thinking and guide our decisions across all aspects of the NIDCR research endeavor. - Scientific Excellence: We are dedicated to excellence and integrity in DOC research and apply core principles of research, rigor, and reproducibility to all funded studies. We ensure that all research is conducted ethically, and that data collected is well-described for replication or applications in other settings. We accelerate innovative and translational research with strategic investments in areas that are ripe for rapid advancement.
- Diversity, Equity, and Inclusion: We are committed to developing a research workforce that represents our nation's demographics across all aspects of race, ethnicity, gender/sexual identity, disability, socioeconomic status, and life experiences. We continually strive to build a community of clinicians, clinician scientists, and scientists with a wide range of expertise, skills, and perspectives in DOC research.
- Stewardship: We are responsible stewards of our resources and continually develop the next generation of researchers and those that support the research enterprise through the strengthening and building of our research capacity. We strive for transparency in our decision-making processes and hold ourselves accountable to all our stakeholders by managing our resources to achieve results that improve DOC health and reduce or eliminate DOC diseases for all people.
- Embracing and Managing Change: We understand that change is inevitable within our world, our field of science, and our workforce. We are committed to being proactive and nimble in our responses to challenges emergencies, and crises. We encourage a learning culture that continually evaluates our processes and our accomplishments. Guided by our experiences and the lessons learned, we strive to find ways to apply these insights across our research endeavor.
Based on the foundation of our vision, mission, and guiding principles, NIDCR has established five strategic priorities -- which are now being used to organize the 2021-2026 Strategic Plan and for which we are now seeking comment: Strategic Priority Areas - Goal 1: Advance cross-disciplinary fundamental research in the biomedical, behavioral, social and environmental sciences and drive its translation into innovations for the early diagnosis, prevention and treatment of DOC diseases and conditions across the lifespan.
- Goal 2: Develop more precise and individualized ways of managing and preventing DOC diseases.
- Goal 3: Accelerate the translation of research and the uptake of new discoveries into oral and general healthcare practices that reduce health inequities and disparities and improve oral health outcomes for individuals and communities worldwide.
- Goal 4: Nurture future generations of DOC researchers and oral health professional scholars who can address existing and emerging challenges driven by personalized and public health needs and a continually evolving landscape of science and technology advances.
- Goal 5: Expand already existing partnerships and create new ones to advance the NIDCR research enterprise and increase its reach and impact.
NIDCR invites you to provide feedback on NIDCR's priority areas for its next strategic plan. Please submit all responses to this RFI electronically by August 27, 2021. We look forward to your input and hope that you will share this RFI opportunity with your colleagues. Best, NIDCR Executive Team | 
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