New report examines regulation of federally funded research

http://www.eurekalert.org/pub_releases/2015-09/naos-nre092215.php

Public Release: 22-Sep-2015
New report examines regulation of federally funded research
National Academy of Sciences

Continuing expansion of federal research regulations and requirements is diminishing the effectiveness of the U.S. scientific enterprise and lowering the return on the federal investment in research by directing investigators' time away from research and toward administrative matters, says a new congressionally mandated report from the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. The report identifies specific actions Congress, the White House, federal agencies, and research institutions should take to reduce the regulatory burden.

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"Federal regulations and reporting requirements, which began as a way to exercise responsible oversight, have increased dramatically in recent decades and are now unduly encumbering the very research enterprise they were intended to facilitate," said Larry Faulkner, chair of the committee that conducted the study and wrote the report, and president emeritus of the University of Texas, Austin. "A significant amount of investigators' time is now spent complying with regulations, taking valuable time from research, teaching, and scholarship."

Academic institutions and individual investigators often receive research funding from multiple federal agencies, but approaches to similar requirements - such as grant proposals, disclosure of financial conflict of interest, and animal care - are not harmonized across agencies. Regulations, reporting requirements, and congressional mandates frequently overlap, resulting in duplication of effort, multiple reporting of the same information in different formats, and multiple submissions of information on different schedules. Conflicting guidance on compliance requirements has created uncertainty and confusion, often leading universities to implement overly prescriptive procedures in an effort to avoid penalties, thereby adding to the administrative burden.

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