Strategic Goal: Contribute to the public health, socio-economic well-being, and history of the Nation. VA will support the public health of the Nation as a whole through medical research, medical education and training, and serve as a resource in the event of a national emergency or natural disaster; VA will support the socio-economic well being of the Nation through education, vocational rehabilitation, and home loan programs; and VA will preserve the memory and sense of patriotism of the Nation by maintaining national cemeteries as national shrines, and hosting patriotic and commemorative ceremonies and events.

Objective: Advance VA medical research and development programs to better address the needs of the veteran population and to contribute to the Nation’s knowledge of disease and disability.

Performance Goal: Maintain the percentage of funded research projects relevant to VA’s health care mission in Designated Research Areas at 99 percent.

VA will maintain the proportion of medical research projects that are demonstrably related to the health care of veterans or to other Departmental missions. In meeting its mission, VA Research & Development (R&D) capitalizes on the unique opportunities provided by the veterans health care system. R&D continues to realign its priority areas to more appropriately target research projects that address the special needs of veteran patients and to balance research resources among basic and applied research. This approach will ensure a complementary role between the discovery of new knowledge and the application of these discoveries to medical practice.

The R&D program administers the medical and prosthetic research appropriation, which supports VA medical center employees conducting research projects, initiated on the basis of their own scientific interests, or in response to invitations from the R&D office in headquarters. These projects are classified in accordance with the organizational units (within the R&D office) involved in selecting applications and administering the awards resulting from successful applications. These units are: Cooperative Studies Program; Health Services Research and Development Service; Medical Research Service; and Rehabilitation Research and Development Service (recently reorganized into the overall R&D program).

VA cooperates with the National Institutes of Health, DoD, nonprofit foundations, and the private sector. VA researchers participate in a wide range of technical panels and interdepartmental sharing committees. One of these is the National Science and Technology Council’s Construction and Buildings Subcommittee on Research and Development, the purpose of which is to lessen the cost of facilities and improve performance. Another is the Brain Injury Association and the Defense and Veteran Head Injury Program. This partnership provides VA with additional opportunities to participate in research projects designed to improve the understanding and treatment of traumatic brain injury.

There are no major management challenges that will affect achievement of this performance goal.

Data are derived from the Research and Development Information System (RDIS). This system is maintained by R&D and is continually updated by the Research administration offices. Verification of the data entry is audited through random R&D administrative site visits. A report is produced annually that is national in scope.

(For additional information on this performance goal, refer to Medical Programs, Volume 2, Chapters 2 and 3.)