Below is a message I received from Peter Alterman, Ph.D., Director of
Operations, Office of Extramural Research at the National Institutes of
Health on October 2, 1997.  I have asked and received his permission to
post this information to our resadm-l LISTSERV.

Just to let you know, I have privately responded to Dr. Alterman's E-mail,
but in fairness to him, I will not post my response until he responds to me.
If you wish to respond to Dr. Alterman you can contact him at
xxxxxx@od1em1.od.nih.gov.

Mike Luczak
Grants Administrator
Saint Louis University Health Sciences Center
Phone:  314-577-8108
Fax:  314-268-5551
_________________________________

Mike, your message concerning FEDIX reached my desk this morning and
I thought you might like to have more substantial information about the
decision we made to cease funding that activity for the coming year.

At least three times during July, August and September, the Extramural
Program Management Committee (EPMC), comprised of the senior
officials at NIH responsible for extramural research policy-making and
management, reviewed the continuation of NIH "corporate" support of
FEDIX. These reviews consisted of three activities: presentations of their
use of FEDIX and Federal Opportunity Alert (FOA) services by specific
Institute officials who had independent contracts with FIE; summaries of
the existing services by Mr. Geoff Grant and Dr. Wendy Baldwin which
included presentation of the outreach and other data provided by FIE to
us, and frank discussions of concerns and issues by Institute and
Center officials around the table.

After each discussion, the EPMC chair called for a vote on the question
of whether EPMC should recommend further support of the "corporate"
contract to the Office of Extramural Research.  Dr. Baldwin concluded,
on the basis of those votes, that there did not exist a consensus among
the NIH Institutes and Centers (ICs) to continue support for the
"corporate" contract for FEDIX and FOA.

The decision was in large part due to IC satisfaction with the research
opportunity outreach capabilities already provided by the NIH and IC
Home Pages, and by the lack of clear evidence that FEDIX and FOA
services resulted in additional submissions of applications of quality.
There was also some concern voiced that an NIH outreach of this type
should not necessarily be limited to one vendor, but open to many, via a
"value-added" approach, with NIH providing the basic information -- as it
does -- and vendors incorporating added services or products on that
base.

In order to promote a variety of vendor participation in developing and
deploying value-added products and services for the NIH Guide, the
CRISP database, Edison, and other NIH extramural information sources,
the Office of Extramural Research, working with the EPMC, will hold one
or more vendors' meeting.  At this meeting, all vendors currently
providing value-added services to NIH extramural information sources
(such as FIE) and potential vendors will meet with managers of NIH
extramural programs to discuss a spectrum of opportunities for working
relationships.

We'll probably post this text on our Web site so other Research
Administrators can easily read it, as I'm sure you are not the only one
concerned about this issue.  Should you have any further questions
regarding the FEDIX issue, please feel free to send me e-mail or to call
me at 301-496-7998.

=============================================
Peter Alterman, Ph.D.
Director of Operations
Office of Extramural Research
National Institutes of Health