HEI welcomes ideas for next Strategic Plan

Quality science to inform decisions does not just happen — it takes a careful strategic effort, drawing from the best minds in policy and science to ensure that the most relevant answers can be produced in time for key upcoming decisions.

Nowhere is this attention to strategic thinking more important than in the HEI Strategic Plan for Understanding the Health Effects of Air Pollution, the document that HEI crafts every five years with its sponsors, the scientific community, and the broader community of environmental and other stakeholders.

“The Plan, which HEI has developed and implemented each five years for the past 25 years, provides an invaluable guide for focusing the Institute’s resources. This is all the more necessary as each dollar invested in targeted science becomes more scarce,” said HEI President Dan Greenbaum, “and it is out of this plan that HEI’s focused requests for applications, special scientific reviews, and other targeted projects evolve.”
 

HEI has now launched its efforts to develop the HEI Strategic Plan for 2020–2025, building on and seeking to enhance the foundation set during the previous five years in these four areas: Assessing the Health Outcomes of Air Quality Improvements (Accountability); Multipollutant Exposure, Epidemiology, and Toxicology Research; Transportation and Urban Health; and Global Health.

“We are also scanning the regulatory arena to identify the range of decisions likely to occur during the next five years. This way, our Plan is as well tuned as it can be to the needs of tomorrow, not just today,” Greenbaum added.
 

To ensure the most responsive Plan, HEI is already undertaking key consultations:

Fall–Winter 2018–2019: HEI senior staff meets with sponsor groups and other stakeholders to gather ideas.

March 2019: The HEI Research Committee and sponsors meet to discuss future research needs.

Spring 2019: HEI presents the first draft of the Strategic Plan at the HEI Annual Conference in May for further input.

Summer 2019: HEI revises the draft Plan and sends it to sponsors, stakeholders, and members of the scientific community for comments and suggestions.

Fall–Winter 2019–2020: A final Plan is formally adopted by the HEI Board of Directors.
 

Most important to the new Strategic Plan will be getting your ideas. Please look for and comment on the Plan as it is developed — and get in touch even earlier with your ideas by contacting Greenbaum, Vice President Bob O’Keefe, or Director of Science Rashid Shaikh.