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Federal focus on Faculty Outside Activities— “Foreign Influence”

This article discusses the federal government's focus on faculty outside activities and foreign influence in US research, including actions taken by federal agencies such as the Department of Education, NIH, and DOE. It highlights letters from Congress to Secretary Betsy DeVos, NIH's efforts to address foreign involvement, DOE's new policy on foreign talent recruitment, and correspondence with Senator Grassley and federal research funding agencies. The article emphasizes the need for accurate reporting, intellectual property security, and peer review integrity in order to protect national security.

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Federal focus on Faculty Outside Activities— “Foreign Influence”

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  1. Federal focus on Faculty Outside Activities—“Foreign Influence” Patrick Fitzgerald RAS Friday May 17, 2019

  2. Federal Agency Actions • Letter from Congress to Secretary Betsy Devos (June 2018) • NIH Letter re: Foreign Influence (August 2018) and follow up correspondence • DOE Notification (February 2019) • New DOE Reporting Requirements (April 2019)

  3. DeVos letter (June 19, 2018) • Letter from Congress to Secretary DeVos requesting a DoEd investigation into foreign funding and talent programs at U.S universities  • Focus on Huawei Research Innovation Program, which provides funding to major universities: “…We believe these partnerships may pose a significant threat to national security and we believe this threat demands your attention and oversight.”

  4. F. Collins (Director of NIH) Letter re: Foreign Influence to all institutions/investigators (August 20, 2018) Foreign threats to US Biomedical Research: • improve accurate reporting of all sources of research support, financial interests, and affiliations; • mitigate the risk to intellectual property security while continuing NIH’s long tradition of collaborations, including with foreign scientists and institutions; • explore additional steps to protect the integrity of peer review.

  5. NIH Letter to Selected Institutions From:    Michael S Lauer, MD                NIH Deputy Director for Extramural Research                Director, NIH Office of Extramural Research Re:       Failure to disclose outside research support, relevant affiliations, or foreign components Dear XXXX: “It has come to our attention that there are issues of potential noncompliance with NIH policies regarding disclosure of outside research support and relevant affiliations or foreign components at XXXX University. NIH has become aware that applications to the NIH for the investigators named below may have failed to comply with the above policies for other support and disclosing foreign financial interests and/or failing to gain NIH prior approval for the use of foreign components on NIH awards.”

  6. Congressional Hearing on NIH 2020 Budget (4/11/19) • NIH Director Francis Collins asked about efforts NIH has made to address foreign involvement in U.S. research, such as “duplicate labs in other countries and inappropriate inappropriate sharing of information • Dr. Collins indicated that there have been “egregious instances” where NIH funding has been taken advantage of and that there were greater than 55 ongoing investigations at 55 individual institutions. • These investigations were reported to have led to some investigators being fired from their institution or asked to leave. • Dr. Collins suggested that institutions are recognizing that there is a problem and working in partnership with NIH to address these issues

  7. Department of Energy Notice (February 1, 2019) New DOE policy: DOE federal personnel and contractors will be subject to limitations, including prohibitions on working with foreign talent recruitment programs. “…some foreign government talent recruitment programs have taken advantage of America’s openness to collaboration to infiltrate our labs, steal our technology and use our own resources against us.”

  8. DOE has updated their required quarterly reporting obligations to add more information (April 2019) • New information for Participants and Collaborating Organizations: • Identify the person's state, U.S. territory, and/or country of residence • State whether this person has collaborated internationally • If the participant was U.S.-based, state whether this person collaborated internationally with an individual located in a foreign country; and specify whether the person-traveled to the foreign country as (part of that collaboration, and, if so, what the duration of stay was. The foreign country(ies) should be identified. • If the participant was not U.S.-based, state whether this person traveled to the U.S. or another country as part of a collaboration, and, if so; what the duration of stay was. The destination country should be identified.

  9. Correspondence with Senator Grassley and Federal Research Funding Agencies • Letters sent to NIH (October 2018), DoD (April 1, 2019) and NSF (April 15, 2019) • NSF Letter • Questions asked by Grassley to “better understand NSF’s current process for protecting taxpayer-funded research from foreign threats and to assess any forthcoming changes” and how much agency is spending • Also inquires about background checks on researchers and institutions, rules and procedures that exist to prevent foreign actors from acquiring or duplicating NSF-funded research data, audits and investigations of violations, enforcement mechanisms available to the agency, a list of entities under investigation, and the extent to which NSF engages with the Departments of Justice and State and the intelligence community to track, assess and analyze foreign threats.

  10. NSF Response to Grassley (April 26, 2019) • “NSF is currently in the process of developing a clear, standardized, web-based disclosure form for researchers to list all sources of current and pending support….” • One change NSF has already made is asking all grant applicants to check a box if their proposal requests funding for a foreign organization or an international branch campus of a U.S.-based institution. Anyone who checks the box must explain why the research cannot be done at the U.S. institution and what the foreign collaborator brings to the table.

  11. Dept of Defense (DoD)Response to Grassley • DoD had not yet responded to Sen. Grassley’s April 1 memo • DoD issue a memorandum on March 20, 2019 that requires proposers for all non-procurement transactions to submit detailed information on other current and pending support for all “key personnel”. This requirement is effective 30 days after issuance of the memorandum “ this information will be used to support protection of intellectual property, controlled information, key personnel, and information about critical technologies relevant to national security. Additionally, this information will be used to limit undue influence, including foreign talent programs, by countries that desire to exploit U.S. technology…”

  12. What’s Next? • There is like to be more of the same from federal agencies • More questions • Broader disclosure • Closer scrutiny See you in September for an update!

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