US Republicans push for cross-border research collaboration rules

Times Higher Education

Paul Basken

February 16, 2024

After years of delays, US congressional Republicans are pushing the Biden administration to move faster on creating rules that would clear up confusion over what academics must report about their foreign partnerships.

The problem hit crisis levels during the Trump administration, which pursed a crackdown involving expulsions from universities and criminal prosecutions. The Biden administration has repeatedly promised to write clearer rules for what is allowed and what must be disclosed, but has struggled to find workable guidelines.

Looking to move the process along, the chairman of the science committee in the Republican-led US House of Representatives, Frank Lucas, summoned the leaders of the top federal science agencies to appear at a congressional hearing, where he pressed them for results.

The head of the White House’s Office of Science and Technology Policy, Arati Prabhakar, told Mr. Lucas that the administration had drafted a set of reporting guidelines for researchers with foreign partnerships, but was told by numerous universities that it looked too bureaucratic.

The plan included “a lot of reporting and training requirements”, Dr Prabhakar said. Institutions, she said, saw it as creating large administrative burdens with comparatively little effect, with especially difficult implications for smaller institutions.

“What I want to be sure of,” she told Mr. Lucas and other lawmakers, “is that we don’t turn this research security programme process into a checklist that an administrator signs off on”.

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