Abstract
This special issue of the Journal of Women's Health showcases a significant milestone for the Office of Research on Women's Health (ORWH), National Institutes of Health (NIH): the first 5 years of the newest iteration of the Specialized Centers of Research Excellence (SCORE) for the study of sex differences program, a signature funding initiative first issued in 2002. SCORE is the only disease-agnostic NIH-wide program focusing on biomedical conditions affecting women, with an emphasis on sex and gender variables. The Career Enhancement Core (CEC) was a new addition to the Centers of Excellence that serves to meet the career enhancement needs of translational science in the study of sex and gender differences.
Since its beginnings as a Specialized Centers of Research (SCOR) P50 program (RFA-OD-02-002), it has been at the forefront of NIH programs that study sex and gender factors that affect women's health. The SCOR program's emphasis on the consideration of sex influences in studies as integral to scientific rigor in the design, analysis, and reporting of research at its core advances the ORWH mission to advance and expand women's health research and is consistent with the NIH vision to integrate sex and gender into biomedical research.
Over the next 15 years, SCOR would serve as a model for the rigorous and reproducible considerations of the influence of sex on health and disease. It is significant to note here that the SCOR program preceded the now-landmark NIH Sex as a Biological Variable (SABV) policy (NOT-OD-15-102) by more than a decade.
An independent evaluation of the SCOR program found supported research efforts to be highly impactful—both within its funded department and institution and in the broader biomedical research community—by adding significantly to the body of knowledge on sex and sex differences to advance the health of women. To build upon the success of SCOR, the program expanded its reach from a Centers of Excellence program to a SCORE program that could serve as a national resource with the added value afforded by cooperative engagement between the programs.
The overall objective of the current SCORE Centers of Excellence is to promote disease-agnostic, investigator-initiated, interdisciplinary, and translational research by functioning independently and collaboratively to (1) lead as a regional/national Center of Research Excellence on sex differences and the health of women; (2) serve as a potential resource and repository for data, biospecimens, and sex and gender research tools; (3) educate the scientific community and train the next generation of biomedical and behavioral researchers; (4) promote diversity, equity, inclusion, and accessibility; and (5) disseminate information on sex differences and the health of women.
The goal of the CEC is to meet the career enhancement needs of translational science in the study of sex differences. As a required element of the SCORE, the CEC must be maintained throughout the entire term of the funding period. The CEC supports early career faculties or established investigators who seek to enhance or refocus their careers on translational research. The CECs have established pilot grant funding programs along with complementary education programs that provide opportunities to learn about and engage in rigorous research methodologies and transparency in experimental design and reporting.
Each of the currently funded 11 SCORE CECs provides opportunities at their respective institutions to build capacity and expand our understanding of women's health, and to incorporate SABV when planning and designing studies, and when analyzing and reporting data. Each SCORE has developed its own unique CEC that is providing novel educational, networking, and funding opportunities. The programs have developed best practices and have found novel ways to enhance studies of women's health and SABV to share with the broader academic community.
ORWH and partnering NIH institutes and centers (ICs), National Institute on Aging, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and National Institute of Mental Health, are cofunding 11 SCORE programs across the United States with an investment of $18 million per year for 5 years. The SCORE request for applications (RFAs) recently has been reissued (RFA-OD-22-014) and will expire on August 16, 2024.
That brings us to the present. We are celebrating the milestone of the first 5 years of the SCORE program with this issue by featuring the career-enhancing activities across 11 programs supported by the SCORE CEC. ORWH and participating NIH ICs are grateful to the Journal of Women's Health for showcasing the importance of SCORE CECs at different U.S. institutions across a multitude of research areas relevant to the health of women.
The publications in this issue are nothing short of exemplary, and we are proud to see the efforts in stimulating young investigators, fostering new scientists, addressing sex and gender, sponsoring trainings and workshops, and providing valuable resources to the scientific community highlighted here. The program has already garnered a significant return on investment and will ultimately lead to improvements in the health of women and all of us.