CONNECT: Collaborative Network for Nurturing Ecosystems of Common Fund Team Science

PROJECT SUMMARY - EVALUATION CORE The Common Fund Data Ecosystem (CFDE) seeks to revolutionize biomedical research through strategic investments in informatics tools, personnel, and data. The Evaluation Core will be responsible for performing an annual evaluation of the CFDE, assessing the program's progress toward its goals. For high-visibility CF programs, undergoing such assessments can enhance their reputation, increase impact, and foster positive outcomes. The Evaluation Core will produce annual reports aggregating metrics, interpreting findings, and issuing recommendations while providing advice and guidance based on the evaluation process. We propose a stakeholder and community informed continuous evaluation and improvement process across the CFDE, utilizing our expertise in automated systems, data integration, and stakeholder engagement. Working under the Office of Strategic Coordination (OSC) and in collaboration with NIH staff, we will achieve the following aims: 1) establish evaluation metrics aligned with CFDE principles through stakeholder engagement, 2) implement processes that continually integrate resources to gather metrics across CF programs, including the CFDE, 3) develop a report generator for CF programs and the CFDE to provide dashboards and continuously-updated reports to project leaders and stakeholders; 4) engage with CF programs and the CFDE to provide guidance based on findings from evaluation metrics, understand gaps in metrics and reports, and ensure continuous improvement. Inspired by the agile framework, our approach supports annual evaluations while offering immediate feedback for CFDE components. This strategy maximizes the core's impact by generating metrics informed by diverse perspectives, developing software and automation for evaluating CFDE components, creating integrated reports combining narrative interpretation with quantitative metrics, and implementing agile practices for continuous improvement. Our proposed Evaluation Core will provide impartial, transparent, and constructive guidance. Our focus on collaboratively developing principle-guided metrics through stakeholder engagement ensures a smooth evaluation process, eliminating unexpected outcomes and fostering a sense of fairness.