The National Science Foundation will soon start crunching large databases to see if there are scientists who failed to disclose ties to foreign institutions in their grant applications. It is arguably the boldest of several steps federal research agencies are taking to comply with a new law that aims to boost U.S. technological innovation
The CHIPS and Science Act was signed into law by President Joe Biden on August 9th. There is a mandate to strengthen research security.
Lawmakers and others have criticized federal research agencies for not being more vigilant against security problems. There are instances in which grantees have accepted foreign funding that comes with restrictions on publication or that creates a conflict of commitment for a scientist employed by a U.S. funded entity. Many of the Chinese scientists recruited to the U.S. are of Chinese descent.
The National Institutes of Health began to more aggressively enforce existing rules requiring grantees to disclose any foreign ties, which resulted in sanctions against some scientists and the return of grant funds. The China Initiative was launched by the US Department of Justice. It led to the prosecution of some two dozen academic researchers. The departments of energy and defense have created a risk matrix to help identify potential security threats.
The act requires agencies to assess the types of research most vulnerable to theft, provides more training to scientists on how to reduce security risks, and gathers more information from grantees. It also bars scientists employed by the U.S. government from joining a talent recruitment program run by any other country.
Big data will be used to help protect the agency's $7 billion research portfolio. The agency reviews the biosketches that accompany each grant proposal and provides basic information about the applicants and key members of their team. The Web of Science and Scopus will be compared with information contained in U.S. patent applications in the future.
The goal of the organization is to spot potential red flags. An NSF grantee who has listed participation in a foreign talent recruitment program in a published paper, but not disclosed that ties them to the organization, is of particular concern.
Rebecca Keiser is the head of the office of research security at the National Science Foundation. Through data analysis, we will be able to find that.
Keiser says that the National Science Foundation will take a closer look at any discrepancies it finds and then reach out to the researcher. Individual cases have been referred to the agency's independent inspector general, who decides if to investigate. She says that an institution will be asked to understand what they have found.
When the agency put out a public notice of its intentions to create a new system of records, university administrators got wind of it. It's not clear what information will be collected and how it will be managed by the organization.
anxiety has been caused by that The Council on Governmental Relations, which tracks the impact of federal regulations on academic research, is concerned about who would have access to the data files and how they would be checked. The rules of the road that apply to this new system of records are yet to be learned.
Before the agency asks questions, institutions should have the chance to vet any discrepancies that are found. The information it collects from grant applications is not public.
In the future, institutions will be able to do their own analyses and resolve potential disclosure issues before they come to the attention of the National Science Foundation. Keiser wants everyone to have access to it.
Keiser says that the tool could be a boon to scientists by helping them identify other groups doing the same research. Keiser imagines it would be possible to call the university and say, "Hey, the analytics found this really high- impact project you may not know about." Isn't that really great?
According to Keiser, her current budget isn't enough to meet the staffing level mandated by the CHIPS act. The data mining project may be able to be launched before the end of the year thanks to a "creative use" of existing resources.
Related story By Jeffrey MervisThere are provisions in the CHIPS and Science Act that will affect researchers who receive federal funding. There are some major changes or additions to existing policies that are included in the final bill, as well as some proposals that didn't make it into the final bill.
The National Science Foundation is expected to make four awards this fall to develop training modules for federal grantees. The training for graduate students and postdocs is made compulsory by the CHIPS act. The National Institute of Health, Department of Energy, and Department of Defense are working with the National Science Foundation.
The law requires the National Science Foundation to give an award to an independent organization to create a risk analysis center. Identifying the research areas of greatest interest to a foreign power is one of the goals. The center is funded by membership fees from participating institutions.
Legislators accuse universities of giving control over faculty appointments, research agendas, and curricula to foreign governments in exchange for donations. The CHIPS act requires grantees to report gifts over $50,000 from foreign entities and gives them the authority to ask for a copy of the agreements.
China's Ministry of Education funds language and cultural centers that are funded by the National Science Foundation. After the U.S. policymakers accused the Chinese government of using them for political ends, the number of such centers has plummeted. The decline was accelerated by the ban on U.S. universities receiving DOD funding for language training. The money can be turned back on by both the DOD and the National Science Foundation.
The CHIPS and Science Act contained provisions that university administrators felt would be burdensome or duplicate work by other agencies, such as restrictions on immigration, closer scrutiny of foreign gifts, and a White House body to manage research security. When that language was removed from the final bill, they were happy. Science lobbyists say that the legislation will be taken up after the elections in November.
The Association of American Universities believes that some of them will return. We're not out of the woods yet.
Speaking recently at the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's science, technology, and security roundtable, Smith said one particularly troubling provision would have allowed the Committee on Foreign Investment in the United States to review gifts to universities from foreign entities The executive order gave the authority to review foreign investments in U.S. companies related to critical technologies such as artificial intelligence and quantum computing. Smith told the Roundtable that charitable contributions to universities are not covered by the review.
Faculty members would have had to report any foreign gifts they received. The floor for universities to report foreign gifts was lowered. A provision that would have made failure to disclose foreign sources of research support a criminal offense with prison sentences for those found guilty has been dropped. The legislation was abandoned because it would have made it easier for the Department of State to reject visa applications from foreign scientists. The Office of Science and Technology Policy, which is deciding how to implement a presidential order on research security, is being duplicated by a council.
New federal mandates on research security have been included in the past in the DOD's annual re-authorization of programs. There are 12 appropriations bills that set spending for the next fiscal year. The defense and spending bills are considered must pass legislation.
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