Blogrolling: Rock Talk

Arlenna’s post today alerted me to a brand new blog from the Office of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of Health. The OER is, of course, the office that handles, well, us. The NIH funded extramural research community. Anyone who works in a lab that is funded by the NIH is under the umbrella of the OER in one way or another. The fact that they have taken up blogging is of more than a passing interest to those of us in the extramural research community that read and write blogs.

Rock Talk is authored by Dr. Sally Rockey (pictured), who is:

NIH’s Deputy Director for Extramural Research, serving as the principal scientific leader and advisor to the NIH Director on the NIH extramural research program.

This is fantastic. She’s already jumping in to grapple with topics, such as Family Medical Leave and NIH policies in support thereof, that originally arose in the academic blogsphere.

That’s a win for you, Dear Reader. It means that someone very high up at the NIH is listening to your issues, ideas and complaints that you blurt out in this particular forum. Fantastic.

My advice is to put this on your blogroll, your RSS or whatnot. Stop by and comment. Nothing like traffic and commentary to convince an entity like the NIH that this is a valuable activity in which to engage. And who knows? Maybe some brilliant observation of yours will influence NIH policy.