HHS Template - SSJ under FAR part 8.4 START - Redacted

National Institute of Arthritis and Musculoskeletal and Skin Diseases (NIAMS) now seek to jointly expand and configure START as a central knowledge management, messaging, and operational support platform. This collaborative effort reflects a shared recognition that the information management challenges facing NINR and NIAMS — fragmented data sources, inconsistent messaging, duplicative workflows, and difficulty surfacing portfolio-wide insights quickly — are common across NIH ICOs. By partnering on this expansion, NINR and NIAMS will not only solve these challenges for their own institutions, but will produce a reusable, scalable model that other ICOs can adopt with minimal additional investment. Rather than relying on a fragmented array of NIH data platforms, documents, dashboards, and repositories, NINR and NIAMS require a unified interface through which staff and leadership can quickly find up-to-date, validated, and fit-for-purpose information and common language for describing each Institute's science and mission — and the unique contribution of their funded research to NIH, HHS, and other federal priorities. This expansion will build upon START's existing architecture and will leverage automation, AI-generated summarization, meta-tagging, and human quality control workflows to support not only planning and reporting, but also consistent representation of each Institute in meetings, working groups, committees, conferences, data calls, grantee interactions, and responses to queries from HHS and NIH leadership, Congress, and other key stakeholders. 2. INCLUDE Tracking and Reporting – The INvestigation of Co-occurring conditions across the Lifespan to Understand Down syndromE (INCLUDE) Project is an NIH-wide initiative managed by the Division of Program Coordination, Planning, and Strategic Initiatives (DPCPSI) within the NIH Office of the Director. The INCLUDE Project aims to increase participation of people with Down syndrome (DS) and their families in clinical research, expand knowledge about DS and its links to other health conditions, and improve the health of individuals with DS.
The Strategic Tracking and Reporting Tool (START) is a centralized digital platform that strengthens NIH's ability to collect, manage, and report on programmatic activities. The INCLUDE Project seeks to develop a dedicated INCLUDE START module to significantly enhance portfolio analysis capabilities and efficiency through automated data integration with existing NIH systems, including but not limited to eRA modules, iCITE, and the DPCPSI