Mission | NINR

Background

Federal involvement in nursing research can be traced back to 1946, with the establishment of the Division of Nursing within the Office of the Surgeon General, Public Health Service. However, the impetus for establishing NINR came years later, from the findings of two Federal studies. A 1983 report by the Institute of Medicine recommended that nursing research be included in the mainstream of biomedical and behavioral science, and a 1984 NIH Task Force study found nursing research activities to be relevant to the NIH mission. In 1986, Public Law 99-158, the Health Research Extension Act of 1985, created the National Center for Nursing Research (NCNR) at NIH. In 1993, NCNR was elevated to an NIH institute National Institute of Nursing Research (NINR) with the signing of the NIH Revitalization Act. Read the NIH Almanac for more information about NINR's history.

NINR believes that nursing research is the key to unlocking the power and potential of nursing by leveraging nursing’s strengths and unique knowledge and perspectives inherent to the discipline to the benefit of all people.