Request for Information on the American Research Environment

Citation84 FR 68958
Record Number2019-27165
Published date17 December 2019
SectionNotices
CourtScience And Technology Policy Office
Federal Register, Volume 84 Issue 242 (Tuesday, December 17, 2019)
[Federal Register Volume 84, Number 242 (Tuesday, December 17, 2019)]
                [Notices]
                [Pages 68958-68960]
                From the Federal Register Online via the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
                [FR Doc No: 2019-27165]
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                OFFICE OF SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY POLICY
                Request for Information on the American Research Environment
                AGENCY: Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP).
                ACTION: Notice of Request for Information (RFI) on the American
                research environment.
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                SUMMARY: On behalf of the National Science and Technology Council's
                (NSTC's) Joint Committee on the Research Environment (JCORE), the OSTP
                requests input on actions that Federal agencies can take, working in
                partnership with private industry, academic institutions, and non-
                profit/philanthropic organizations, to maximize the quality and
                effectiveness of the American research environment. Specific emphasis
                is placed on ensuring that the research environment is welcoming to all
                individuals and enables them to work safely, efficiently, ethically,
                and with mutual respect, consistent with the values of free inquiry,
                competition, openness, and fairness.
                DATES: The comment period has been extended. Interested persons are
                invited to submit comments on or before 11:59 p.m. ET on January 28,
                2020.
                ADDRESSES: Comments submitted in response to this notice may be
                submitted online to: The NSTC Executive Director, Chloe Kontos,
                [email protected]. Email submissions should be machine-readable [pdf,
                word] and not copy-protected. Submissions should include ``RFI
                Response: JCORE'' in the subject line of the message.
                 Instructions: Response to this RFI is voluntary. Each individual or
                institution is requested to submit only one response. Submission must
                not exceed 10 pages in 12 point or larger font, with a page number
                provided on each page. Responses should include the name of the
                person(s) or organization(s) filing the comment. Comments containing
                references, studies, research, and other empirical data that are not
                widely published should include copies or electronic links of the
                referenced materials.
                 It is suggested that no business proprietary information,
                copyrighted information, or personally identifiable information be
                submitted in response to this RFI.
                 In accordance with FAR 15.202(3), responses to this notice are not
                offers and cannot be accepted by the Federal Government to form a
                binding contract. Additionally, those submitting responses are solely
                responsible for all expenses associated with response preparation.
                FOR FURTHER INFORMATION CONTACT: For additional information, please
                direct your questions to the NSTC Executive Director, Chloe Kontos,
                [email protected].
                SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: NSTC established JCORE in May 2019. JCORE is
                working to address key areas that impact the U.S. research enterprise;
                enabling a culture supportive of the values and ethical norms critical
                to world-leading science and technology. This includes the need to
                improve safety and inclusivity, integrity, and security of research
                settings while balancing accountability and productivity.
                 Specifically, JCORE is working to:
                 Ensure rigor and integrity in research: This subcommittee
                is identifying cross-agency principles, priorities, and actions to
                enhance research integrity, rigor, reproducibility, and replicability.
                This includes exploring how Federal government agencies and stakeholder
                groups, including research institutions, publishers, researchers,
                industry, non-profit and philanthropic organizations, and others, can
                work collaboratively to support activities that facilitate research
                rigor and integrity through efforts to address transparency,
                incentives, communication, training and other areas.
                 Coordinate administrative requirements for Federally-
                funded research: This subcommittee is identifying and assessing
                opportunities to coordinate agency policies and requirements related to
                Federal grant processes and conflicts of interest disclosure.
                Additionally, this subcommittee is also exploring how persistent
                digital identifiers and researcher profile databases can be used to
                reduce administrative work and track agency investments.
                 Strengthen the security of America's S&T research
                enterprise: This subcommittee is working to enhance risk assessment and
                management, coordinate outreach and engagement across the research
                enterprise, strengthen disclosure requirements and policies, enhance
                oversight and vigilance, and work with organizations that perform
                research to develop best practices that can be applied across all
                sectors. The subcommittee is taking a risk-based approach to
                strengthening the security of our research enterprise balanced with
                maintaining appropriate levels of openness that underpins American
                global leadership in science and technology.
                 Foster safe, inclusive, and equitable research
                environments: This subcommittee is convening the multi-sector research
                community to identify challenges and opportunities, share best
                practices, utilize case studies, and share lessons learned in order to
                promote practices and cultures that build safe, inclusive, and
                equitable research environments.
                Research Rigor and Integrity
                 The National Academies and others have in recent reports on rigor,
                reproducibility and replicability \1\ and integrity,\2\ identified a
                number of areas that Federal agencies and non-Federal stakeholders
                should consider to foster rigorous research. The subcommittee on Rigor
                and Integrity in Research is seeking perspectives on actions Federal
                agencies can take, working in partnership with the broader research
                community, to strengthen the rigor and integrity of research while
                recognizing the need for discipline-specific flexibilities.
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                 \1\ National Academy of Sciences. Reproducibility and
                Replicability in Science (2019).
                 \2\ National Academy of Sciences. Fostering Integrity in
                Research (2017).
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                 1. What actions can Federal agencies take to facilitate the
                reproducibility, replicability, and quality of research? What
                incentives currently exist to (1) conduct and report research so that
                it can be reproduced, replicated, or generalized more readily, and (2)
                reproduce and replicate or otherwise confirm or generalize publicly
                reported research findings?
                 2. How can Federal agencies best work with the academic community,
                professional societies, and the private sector to enhance research
                quality, reproducibility, and replicability? What are current
                impediments and how can institutions, other stakeholders, and Federal
                agencies collaboratively address them?
                 3. How do we ensure that researchers, including students, are aware
                of the ethical principles of integrity that are fundamental to
                research?
                 4. What incentives can Federal agencies provide to encourage
                reporting of null or negative research findings?
                [[Page 68959]]
                How can agencies best work with publishers to to facilitate reporting
                of null or negative results and refutations, constraints on reporting
                experimental methods, failure to fully report caveats and limitations
                of published research, and other issues that compromise reproducibility
                and replicability?
                 5. How can the U.S. government best align its efforts to foster
                research rigor, reproducibility, and replicability with those of
                international partners?
                Coordinating Administrative Requirements for Research
                 Numerous reports and recommendations, including from the National
                Academies,\3\ the National Science Board,\4\ and the Government
                Accountability Office,\5\ have highlighted concerns about increasing
                administrative work for Federally-funded researchers. Congress has
                directed Federal agencies to reduce the administrative burden
                associated with Federal awards through the 21st Century Cures Act (Pub.
                L. 114-25) and the American Innovation and Competitiveness Act (Pub. L.
                114-329). Despite these efforts, preliminary reports from the Federal
                Demonstration Partnership indicate that the time university faculty
                spend administering Federal awards, rather than on research, has
                continued to increase.
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                 \3\ National Academies report Optimizing the Nation's Investment
                in Academic Research (2016).
                 \4\ National Science Board report Reducing Investigators'
                Administrative Workload for Federally Funded Research (2014).
                 \5\ Government Accountability Office report Federal Research
                Grants: Opportunities Remain for Agencies to Streamline
                Administrative Requirements (2016).
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                 Taking into consideration the current Federal landscape with
                respect to individual Federal agency financial conflict of interest
                (FCOI) regulations and policies, including definitions, disclosure or
                reporting requirements and thresholds, training requirements, and
                timing for disclosure, please comment on the following:
                 1. What actions can the Federal government take to reduce
                administrative work associated with FCOI requirements for researchers,
                institutions, and Federal agency staff?
                 2. How can Federal agencies best achieve the appropriate balance
                between reporting and administrative requirements and the potential
                risk of unreported or managed financial conflicts that could compromise
                the research?
                 3. From the perspective of institutions, describe the impact of the
                2011 revisions to the Public Health Services FCOI regulations. What
                were the implications with respect to the balance between burden and
                risk? Did the revisions result in fewer significant unresolved or
                unreported financial conflicts?
                 4. Please comment on whether and how a streamlined, harmonized,
                Federal-wide policy for FCOI would provide benefits with respect to
                reducing administrative work and whether there would be anticipated
                challenges.
                 5. How can agencies best reduce workload associated with submitting
                and reviewing applications for Federal research funding? What
                information is necessary to assess the merit of the proposed research,
                and what information can be delayed until after the merit determination
                is made (``just-in-time'')?
                Research Security
                 The open and internationally collaborative nature of the U.S.
                science and technology research enterprise underpins America's
                innovation, science and technology leadership, economic
                competitiveness, and national security. However, over the past several
                years, some nations have exhibited increasingly sophisticated efforts
                to exploit, influence, our research activities and environments. Some
                of these recent efforts have come through foreign government-sponsored
                talent recruitment programs. Breaches of research ethics, both within
                talent programs and more generally, include the failure to disclose
                required information such as foreign funding, unapproved parallel
                foreign laboratories (so-called shadow labs), affiliations and
                appointments, and conflicting financial interests. Other inappropriate
                behaviors include conducting undisclosed research for foreign
                governments or companies on United States agency time or with United
                States agency funding, diversion of intellectual property or other
                legal rights, and breaches of contract and confidentiality in or
                surreptitious gaming of the peer-review process.
                 In light of these concerns, we seek public input on the following
                questions:
                 1. How can the U.S. Government work with organizations that perform
                research to manage and mitigate the risk of misappropriation of
                taxpayer or other funds through unethical behaviors in the research
                enterprise? Please consider:
                 a. Disclosure requirements and policies. Who within the research
                enterprise should disclose financial as well as nonfinancial support
                and affiliations (e.g., faculty, senior researchers, postdoctoral
                researchers, students, visitors)? What information should be disclosed,
                and to whom? What period of time should the disclosure cover? How
                should the disclosures be validated especially since they are made
                voluntarily? What are appropriate consequences for nondisclosure?
                 b. Disclosure of sources of support for participants in the
                research enterprise. What additional sources of support should be
                disclosed, and should they include current or pending participation in
                foreign government-sponsored talent recruitment programs?
                 c. What information can the government provide to organizations
                that perform research to help them assess risks to research security
                and integrity?
                 2. How can the U.S. government best partner across the research
                enterprise to enhance research security? Please consider:
                 a. Appropriate roles and responsibilities for government agencies,
                institutions, and individuals;
                 b. Discovery of and communication of information regarding
                activities that threaten the security and integrity of the research
                enterprise; and
                 c. Establishment and operation of research security programs at
                organizations that perform research.
                 3. What other practices should organizations that perform research
                adopt and follow to help protect the security and integrity of the
                research enterprise? Please consider:
                 a. Organization measures to protect emerging and potentially
                critical early-stage research and technology.
                 b. How can Federal agencies and research institutions measure and
                balance the benefits and risks associated with international research
                cooperation?
                Safe and Inclusive Research Environments
                 JCORE is focused on identifying actions that will ensure research
                environments in America are free from harassment of any kind, and from
                any conditions that encourage or tolerate harassment or other forms of
                behavior that are inconsistent with the ethical norms of research. The
                aim is to foster an American research enterprise, which epitomizes our
                values and those of research itself, namely, where researchers feel
                welcome and are encouraged to join, wish to remain, and subsequently
                thrive. To achieve this, leaders must create a research environment
                that welcomes all individuals, values their ideas, treats individuals
                as equals, and promotes bold thinking, rigorous and civil debate, and
                collegiality. With this focus in
                [[Page 68960]]
                mind, we seek the public's input on the following questions:
                 1. What policies and practices are most beneficial in fostering a
                culture of safe and inclusive research environments? Where applicable,
                please provide information on:
                 a. Organizational leadership actions that create a culture of
                inclusivity;
                 b. Best practices for preventing harassment from beginning;
                 c. Best practices for prohibiting retaliation against those who
                report harassment;
                 d. Best practices for re-integrating those who have been accused of
                harassment but found to be innocent;
                 e. Whether your organization has a common code of ethics applicable
                to researchers, and whether that code is highlighted and actively
                promoted in training, research practice, etc;
                 f. How institution-based procedures for reporting cases of sexual
                harassment and non-sexual harassment (or toxic climate) differ, and if
                there are aspects of one set of policies that would be beneficial for
                broader inclusion.
                 2. What barriers does your organization face in the recruitment and
                retention of diverse researchers? Where applicable, please provide
                information on:
                 a. The setting to which it applies (i.e., academic, industry,
                etc.);
                 b. Whether your organization has best practices or challenges
                specific to recruitment and retention of global talent;
                 c. Solutions your organization has used to successfully increase
                recruitment or retention of diverse and/or international researchers;
                 d. Best practices to promote bold thinking and enable collegiality
                in debate.
                 3. Are Federal agency policies on harassment complimentary or
                conflicting with regard to state or organizational policies? Where
                applicable, please provide information on:
                 a. What aspects are in conflict, along with the associated agency
                policy;
                 b. What aspects are most protective and make policy reasonable to
                implement;
                 c. What processes have effectively streamlined the administrative
                workload associated with implementation, compliance, or reporting.
                 4. What metrics can the Federal government use to assess progress
                in promoting safer and more inclusive research environments? Where
                applicable, please provide information on:
                 a. What methods your organization uses to assess workplace climate;
                 b. What systems within your organization were developed to enforce
                and/or report back to agencies;
                 c. What metrics does your organization uses to assess effectiveness
                of safe and inclusive practices;
                 d. What actions does your organization take communicate climate
                survey results, both within your organization and to external
                stakeholders?
                Sean Bonyun,
                Chief of Staff, Office of Science and Technology Policy.
                [FR Doc. 2019-27165 Filed 12-16-19; 8:45 am]
                 BILLING CODE 3270-F9-P
                

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