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ACADEMIC RESEARCH REGULATORY RELIEF: 

A REVIEW OF NEW RECOMMENDATIONS 

HEARING 

BEFORE THE

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND 

TECHNOLOGY 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

ONE HUNDRED FOURTEENTH CONGRESS 

SECOND SESSION 

September 29, 2016 

Serial No. 114–96 

Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology 

( 

Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov 
(II) 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY 

HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., 

Wisconsin 

DANA ROHRABACHER, California 

RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

MO BROOKS, Alabama 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

BILL POSEY, Florida 

THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky 

JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma 

RANDY K. WEBER, Texas 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

STEPHEN KNIGHT, California 

BRIAN BABIN, Texas 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

BARRY LOUDERMILK, Georgia 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DRAIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

WARREN DAVIDSON, Ohio 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 

ZOE LOFGREN, California 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

ALAN GRAYSON, Florida 

AMI BERA, California 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

MARC A. VEASEY, Texas 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

DONALD S. BEYER, JR., Virginia 

ED PERLMUTTER, Colorado 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

MARK TAKANO, California 

BILL FOSTER, Illinois 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY

HON. BARBARA COMSTOCK, Virginia, Chair 

FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma 

MICHAEL T. MCCAUL, Texas 

RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois 

JOHN R. MOOLENAAR, Michigan 

BRUCE WESTERMAN, Arkansas 

GARY PALMER, Alabama 

RALPH LEE ABRAHAM, Louisiana 

DARIN LAHOOD, Illinois 

LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas 

DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois 

ELIZABETH H. ESTY, Connecticut 

KATHERINE M. CLARK, Massachusetts 

PAUL TONKO, New York 

SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon 

ERIC SWALWELL, California 

EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas 
(III) 

C O N T E N T S 

September 29, 2016 

Page 

Witness List ............................................................................................................. 2 

Hearing Charter ...................................................................................................... 3 

Opening Statements 

Statement by Representative Barbara Comstock, Chairwoman, Subcommittee 

on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, 

U.S. House of Representatives ............................................................................ 4 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 6 

Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ....................................................... 8 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 10 

Statement by Representative Lamar S. Smith, Chairman, Committee on 

Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives ..................... 12 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 14 

Witnesses: 

Dr. Larry R. Faulkner, President Emeritus, The University of Texas at Austin 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 17 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 19 

Mr. John Neumann, Director, Natural Resources and Environment Team, 

Government Accountability Office 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 27 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 29 

Mr. Jim Luther, Associate Vice President for Finance & Compliance Officer, 

Duke University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 43 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 45 

Dr. A ́ ngel Cabrera, President, George Mason University 

Oral Statement ................................................................................................. 52 

Written Statement ............................................................................................ 54 

Discussion ................................................................................................................. 63 

Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions 

Dr. Larry R. Faulkner, President Emeritus, The University of Texas at Austin .......................................................................................................................... 74 

Mr. John Neumann, Director, Natural Resources and Environment Team, 

Government Accountability Office ...................................................................... 81 

Mr. Jim Luther, Associate Vice President for Finance & Compliance Officer, 

Duke University ................................................................................................... 84 

Dr. A ́ ngel Cabrera, President, George Mason University .................................... 88 
Page

IV 

Appendix II: Additional Material for the Record 

Statement submitted by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson, Ranking 

Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of 

Representatives .................................................................................................... 90 
(1) 

ACADEMIC RESEARCH REGULATORY RELIEF: 

A REVIEW OF NEW RECOMMENDATIONS 

THURSDAY, SEPTEMBER 29, 2016 

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, 

SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY, 

COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY, 

Washington, D.C. 

The Subcommittee met, pursuant to call, at 10:05 a.m., in Room 

2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Barbara Comstock [Chairwoman of the Subcommittee] presiding. 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. The Committee on Science, Space, and 

Technology will come to order. 

Without objection, the Chair is authorized to declare recesses of 

the Committee at any time. 

Good morning, and welcome to today’s hearing titled ’’Academic 

Research Regulatory Relief: A Review of New Recommendations.’’ 

I now recognize myself for five minutes for an opening statement. 

How can we cut the red tape to optimize our Nation’s investment 

in scientific research? That is the question we aim to answer in today’s hearing. 

Since becoming Chair of the Subcommittee on Research and 

Technology, I have heard concern from many scientists and university leaders that too much time and money is being spent complying with federal rules, regulations and other administrative 

work, thereby taking away from vital research and education. Surveys have shown that, on average, researchers spend 42 percent of 

their time meeting administrative requirements. 

Last year, I introduced the Research and Development Efficiency 

Act, a bill to establish a working group under the National Science 

and Technology Council to review federal regulations and make 

recommendations on how to streamline and minimize the regulatory burden on research institutions. That bill overwhelmingly 

passed this Committee on a bipartisan basis and in the House in 

May of last year. I guess we’re still awaiting the Senate as always. 

Since that time, work has continued by the National Academy of 

Sciences and the Government Accountability Office to study and report on solutions for fixing the patchwork of rules and regulations 

that govern federally funded research. In June, the National Academy of Sciences issued its final report: ‘‘Optimizing the Nation’s Investment in Academic Research: A New Regulatory Framework for 

the 21st Century.’’ The report includes four major findings and dozens of recommendations for updating and reforming regulations. 

We are grateful to have Dr. Larry Faulkner here, the chair of the 

committee that authored the report, who will testify on those recommendations. 

Also in June, the Government Accountability Office released a report called ‘‘Federal Research Grants: Opportunities Remain for 

Agencies to Streamline Administrative Requirements.’’ That report 

makes three major recommendations, which we’ll hear more about 

from Dr. Neumann, who led the study team. 

We are also fortunate to have two university leaders with us 

today to talk about the impacts of regulations on their institutions 

and share their expertise. I’m pleased to have Dr. Cabrera here, 

President of George Mason University, which serves northern— 

well, serves the whole country but I’m very proud to work with you 

in our region, and leads not only one of the fastest growing research institutions in the country, but one that happens to be partially in my district, and my daughter’s alma mater with her graduate degree also, and actually I’m leaving after the hearing today. 

I’m going to a Women in Virginia Bioscience that also has George 

Mason folks there, so thank you for your leadership, Dr. Cabrera. 

I look forward to hearing from all of our witnesses about what 

actions Congress and agencies can take to provide regulatory relief 

to the research community, ensuring that more of our federal re-
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search dollars are spent on scientific breakthroughs and developing 

a STEM-trained workforce. 

[The prepared statement of Chairwoman Comstock follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I now recognized the Ranking Member, 

the gentleman from Illinois, Mr. Lipinski, for his opening statement. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, for holding this 

hearing, and thank Chairwoman Comstock and Chairman Smith 

for being here this morning and all of the witnesses for being here. 

As you all know, we finished up our work for a few weeks last 

night, so I’m glad that we’re able to still hold this hearing. 

Efforts to streamline and reduce the burden of administrative requirements placed on academic researchers while maintaining a 

strong system of accountability and scientific integrity are not new. 

The Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) began 30 years ago, 

and the Council on Governmental Relations, which represents and 

supports universities in complying with federal regulations, dates 

back to the post-WW II era. 

However, as research budgets have flattened or declined and our 

best and brightest young researchers increasingly look elsewhere, 

the topic of reducing the administrative burden on federal research 

has taken on new urgency. The FDP reported that academic researchers spend 42 percent of their time on activities other than 

academic research, including administrative burden. That number 

has since been challenged, but I think we all agree with the basic 

premise of this hearing and all of the related reports: too much valuable time of our researchers is wasted on excessive compliance 

with excessive regulations. Issues like subrecipient monitoring, 

micropurchase threshold, biosketches, open access policies, and 

time and effort reporting adds up to a lot of time for researchers. 

I understand this from my own experiences as a college professor, 

through discussions with former colleagues, and from talking to researchers and research university administrators as I have served 

as Chair and then the Ranking Member of this subcommittee for 

the past eight years. 

The Uniform Guidance issued by the Office of Management and 

Budget in December 2013 made several steps in the right direction. 

For example, it provided flexibility for universities to examine alternatives to traditional time and effort reporting on grants including using payroll systems to verify work performed. Inspectors 

General, who opposed this change, still have full authority to conduct audits of those systems to ensure accountability for federal 

funds. Unfortunately, the Uniform Guidance also included changes 

that increased administrative burden without obviously increasing 

accountability, such as the reduction of the micropurchase threshold for competitive bids. 

Two years ago, we held a hearing to review the findings and recommendations from the National Science Board about reducing the 

administrative burden on academic research. 

Today we are reviewing two more recent reports, one from the 

National Academies and the other from the GAO. In response to 

these reports, and working closely with the stakeholder community, 

I developed bipartisan legislation, H.R. 5583, to implement some of 

the key recommendations to Congress. This bill, the University 

Regulation Streamlining and Harmonization Act, would address 

issues around researcher biosketches, the micropurchase threshold, 

and other regulations on academic research. 
9 

However, the most important part of the legislation is the creation of a Research Policy Board at OMB. The board would allow 

members of the research community to meet with agency and OMB 

officials to suggest ways to streamline rules across agencies. This 

board would not be able to overrule or delay any actions taken by 

OMB, but rather would serve to give the research community a 

seat at the table to help advise against overly onerous research regulations both now and in the future. 

This bill has received strong support from the research community, including endorsements from the Association of American 

Universities and the Council on Governmental Relations among 

others. While the clock is ticking on this Congress, I hope we will 

be able to implement at least some of these proposals, if not this 

entire bill, before the end of the year. Either way, I hope that 

OMB, OSTP, and federal research agencies will continue to work 

on the issues identified in these reports and in my legislation. 

These hearings on administrative burden, along with the legislative efforts offered by myself and Chairwoman Comstock, should 

demonstrate clearly to the research community and agency officials 

alike that this Committee is engaged on this issue and will continue to provide oversight and fix problems as they are identified. 

With that, I want to thank today’s witnesses for your contributions to these efforts and for your testimony. I look forward to a 

fruitful discussion, and I yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, and I now recognize Chairman Smith, who is with us here this morning, for his statement, 

and he will also be introducing our first witness from Texas. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

Let me say on behalf of the witnesses and even on behalf of the 

American people, I want to thank you and the Ranking Member, 

Mr. Lipinski, for making a huge effort to be here this morning. Not 

everybody may realize that because we finished votes last night, 

and we will not be convening again as a Congress until after the 

November election, we knew a lot of people were going to be leaving town this morning and I thought we were going to have to cancel this hearing, as important as it was, and the fact that the 

Chairwoman and the Ranking Member said that they would stay 

and be here enabled us to go forward and have this hearing. 

Now, I do want to point out that the Chairwoman has already 

passed what we could call a regulatory relief bill, and deserves congratulations for that, and there’s more to come. Mr. Lipinski has 

a bill that we’re working on, and I do have to question his motive 

for being here because he knows that by being here we’re going to 

be more favorably disposed towards his legislation. But I do appreciate both his efforts to bring some sanity to the regulatory process 

and what the Chairwoman has done too. 

The Committee has held many hearings on the regulatory overreach of agencies during this Administration. Americans from 

small business owners to scientists in the lab want to be free from 

overly burdensome regulations, not tied up in more red tape. 

For several years, the research community has expressed concern 

that time spent on administrative and reporting requirements for 

federal research seriously cuts into lab time. This negatively affects 

the science conducted under those grants. 

The Federal Government spends about $30 billion a year on research and development at our Nation’s colleges and universities. 

Over time, a patchwork of federal laws, regulations, rules, policies, 

and reporting requirements have developed to manage this research. 

A survey of universities found that up to 25 percent of grant 

funding was spent on research-related regulatory compliance—25 

percent. We must ensure accountability and scientific integrity 

when spending taxpayer dollars on research. However, there are 

opportunities for Congress and agencies to streamline regulations 

to optimize the Nation’s investment in research. 

There are some commonsense recommendations to reduce governmental hurdles for our scientists. For example, when a researcher applies for a grant at the National Science Foundation, 

they should be able to use the same biographical information and 

format they use when applying for a grant at the Department of 

Energy or other agencies. If a researcher has a grant from the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration and NASA, the format for research progress reporting to both agencies should be the 

same. 

Confusing, costly, and burdensome regulations take time and 

money away from research. They also make it more difficult for 

young, new innovators to apply and compete for federal funding. 
13 

We should not lose out on developing new breakthrough ideas or 

new talent because of bureaucratic hurdles. 

So I commend Chairwoman Comstock for holding this hearing 

and for her previous work on tackling regulatory relief. I look forward to working with you and our colleagues on both sides of the 

aisle towards developing some legislative solutions, and I mentioned Mr. Lipinski’s bill a minute ago. We must continue to ensure 

that our Nation’s research investments are efficient and effective. 

Thank you, and I’ll yield back. 

[The prepared statement of Chairman Smith follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I now recognize the Chairman to introduce Dr. Faulkner. 

Chairman SMITH. Thank you, Madam Chairwoman. 

It should be obvious why I’d like to, or asked to introduce our 

first witness today because he is Dr. Larry Faulkner, President 

Emeritus of the University of Texas at Austin. 

I might interject here that at one point I represented all of the 

University of Texas at Austin and now only represent a part of it. 

I do have in my district the administration building, and I also 

have all the sororities and fraternities, and I haven’t yet figured 

out why that was given to me, but nevertheless, that’s how it 

stands and I’m pleased to represent at least part of—— 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I have two sister-in-laws from those sororities. 

Chairman SMITH. I mentioned that Dr. Faulkner had been President of the University of Texas at Austin. Most recently Dr. Faulkner chaired the National Academies Committee on Federal Regulation of Research, which carried out a comprehensive review and 

made numerous specific recommendations for improving regulations, regulatory procedures, and regulatory apparatus. As President of the University of Texas at Austin, he oversaw a seven-year 

capital campaign that raised over $1.6 billion, appointed and supported the work of the Commission of 125, a citizens’ group that 

provided guidance on the future of the university and its relationship to the public. Dr. Faulkner received a B.S. degree from Southern Methodist University and was awarded a Ph.D. in chemistry 

from the University of Texas at Austin. We welcome you, Dr. 

Faulkner. It’s nice to have you back, and I’ll yield back. 

Dr. FAULKNER. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. It’s a pleasure to see 

you. I had the pleasure of being in your district at one time. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. I’m sorry. I have to introduce the other 

witnesses now, then we’ll go through, so sorry for the mix-up there. 

Chairman SMITH. I liked what he was saying about having lived 

in my district, but we’ll—— 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Okay. Our second witness today is Mr. 

John Neumann, Director, Natural Resources and Environment 

Team at the Government Accountability Office. Mr. Neumann currently leads efforts in the science and technology area including the 

management and oversight of federal research and development 

programs, protection of intellectual property, and federal efforts to 

support innovation. He received his B.A. in political science cum 

laude from the State University of New York at Stony Brook and 

holds an MBA from American University as well as a J.D. from 

Georgetown University. 

Our third witness today is Mr. Jim Luther, Associate Vice President for Finance and Compliance Officer at Duke University. Mr. 

Luther’s responsibilities include oversight of the post-award areas 

for the university and School of Medicine, management of fixed and 

movable assets, negotiation of Duke’s indirect cost and fringe benefit rates, and all aspects of Duke’s research cost and compliance 

program. Over the past several years, he has instituted a research 

cost and compliance program that includes mandatory training for 

faculty and administrators, a comprehensive compliance certification program, and a compliance monitoring program. Mr. Luther 
17 

earned his B.S. in engineering from the U.S. Naval Academy and 

an M.A. from Duke University. 

Our final witness today is Dr. A ́ ngel Cabrera, President of 

George Mason University. Prior to joining George Mason in 2012, 

he served as President of the Thunderbird School of Global Management in Arizona and is Dean of the I.E. Business School in Madrid. Dr. Cabrera has been recognized by the World Economic 

Forum as a Young Global Leader, by the Aspen Institute as a 

Henry Crown Fellow, by Business Week as a Star of Europe, and 

by the Financial Times as one of the world’s best business deans. 

Dr. Cabrera earned his Ph.D. and M.S. from the Georgia Institute 

of Technology and his B.S. and M.S. in computer and electrical engineering from the Polytechnic University of Madrid. 

I now recognize Dr. Faulkner for five minutes to present his testimony. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. LARRY R. FAULKNER, 

PRESIDENT EMERITUS, 

THE UNIVERSITY OF TEXAS AT AUSTIN 

Dr. FAULKNER. Good morning, Chairwoman Comstock and Ranking Member Lipinski, Chairman Smith. I thank you for your invitation to testify on a congressionally mandated study conducted by 

a committee of the National Academies. 

The general message is that the continuing expansion of federal 

regulation is decreasing the return on the federal investment in research by diverting investigators’ time and other resources away 

from research toward administration and compliance. 

The committee has seven overarching findings: first, that effective regulation is essential to the overall health of the research enterprise; second, that most federal regulations, policies and guidance represent efforts to address important issues but often have 

unintended consequences needlessly encumbering the Nation’s research; third, in recent decades, the amount of regulation has 

grown dramatically; fourth, this continuing expansion of the regulatory system diminishes the effectiveness of the Nation’s investment in research; fifth, universities receive research funding from 

multiple agencies but approaches to similar tasks and goals such 

as the submission of grant proposals are not harmonized across 

agencies; six, that regulations sometimes have resulted when universities did not respond appropriately to investigators’ transgressions; and seventh, the relationship between research universities and institutions and federal funders has long been considered 

a partnership yet there is no formal mechanism by which senior 

stakeholders from both partners can review existing or proposed 

policies. 

Based on these findings, the committee offered four overarching 

recommendations: first, that the regulatory regime for federal research be reexamined and recalibrated. We recommend that Congress, OMB, federal agencies and research institutions take steps 

to improve efficiency. We provide many detailed possibilities. 

Second, research institutions should take action to reinvigorate 

the research partnership and to re-instill trust. 

Third, the responsibilities of the Inspector General should be rebalanced so that consideration is given both to uncovering waste, 
18 

fraud, and abuse and to advising on economy, efficiency, and effectiveness. 

Fourth, the government-university research partnership should 

be made more functional through changes in the regulatory framework. 

For the remainder of my remarks I will focus on human subjects 

research and the proposed new regulatory framework. Midway 

through the committee’s work, the DHHS issued a Notice of Proposed Rule Making on the Federal Policy for the Protection of 

Human Subjects. Over 2,000 comments were submitted in response. Most commentators brought up deficiencies and indicated 

that if the rule were implemented as written, it would create serious obstacles for research. From testimony and much other evidence, the committee concluded that the proposed rule is marred 

by omissions, an absence of essential elements, and a lack of clarity. Given that a national review has not taken place in almost 

forty years of human subjects research, that related research has 

grown tremendously, and that the complexity of the issues has 

greatly increased, the committee recommends that Congress authorize and the President appoint an independent, national commission to examine and to recommend updates to the ethical, legal, 

and institutional framework governing human subjects research. 

Finally, the committee is calling upon the executive branch to 

withdraw the NPRM, giving the proposed commission full scope to 

meet its charge. 

Let me turn last to the proposed new regulatory framework. The 

goal is to provide a mechanism that can forestall duplicative and 

incongruous regulations, streamline and harmonize existing regulations, and provide a means to eliminate ineffective regulations. We 

believe that the only clear path to strengthening the U.S. research 

enterprise and preparing it for continued leadership is through the 

establishment of a new research policy board, which would act as 

the primary analytical, anticipatory and coordinating forum on regulatory policy, bringing together high-level stakeholders from the 

research community and from federal funding agencies. We further 

recommend that a new position of associate director for the academic research enterprise be established in the White House 

OSTP. This officer would perform an essential role by focusing on 

the operational health of the research partnership. 

For nearly 70 years, that partnership has yielded tremendous 

benefits for the American people, improving their economic 

wellbeing, health, and security. It behooves all of us to take steps 

to ensure that it continues to flourish. 

Thank you for this opportunity. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Faulkner follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

Mr. Neumann. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. JOHN NEUMANN, DIRECTOR, 

NATURAL RESOURCES AND ENVIRONMENT TEAM, 

GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 

Mr. NEUMANN. Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and Chairman Smith, I appreciate the opportunity to be here 

today to discuss the findings from our recent report on administrative requirements on federal research grants to universities. 

As you know, the federal government provides billions of dollars each year to colleges and universities for research, over $27 billion 

in fiscal year 2015 alone. To oversee the use of these findings, Congress and federal agencies have established a variety of administrative requirements. However, the research community has raised 

concerns about the administrative workload and costs for researchers and universities to comply with these requirements. 

Today, I would like to briefly highlight the three key findings 

from our report. First, we looked at selected administrative requirements to understand why they’re put in place and found that 

they fell into two general buckets: OMB’s Uniform Guidance for 

grants and agency-specific guidance. OMB’s guidance generally focuses on protecting against fraud, waste, and abuse of funds. For 

example, it requires competition and documentation of purchases 

made with grant funds. Agency-specific guidance generally focuses 

on the quality and effectiveness of research. For example, NIHfunded researchers are required to disclose financial conflicts of interest to promote objectivity in the research they conduct with federal funds. 

Our second key finding was that there are certain common factors that add to the workload and cost for universities to comply 

with these requirements. Specifically, we found that agencies vary 

in how they implement the same requirements causing universities 

to develop multiple processes to comply. We also found that funding agencies require detailed documentation as part of the grant 

application process, even though the likelihood of getting funded is 

relatively low. And some requirements have become more prescriptive such as recent changes to the Uniform Guidance that will require universities to use competitive procurement methods when 

purchasing any goods or services costing $3,500 or more, which 

universities told us will result in added workload and costs. Examples of the workload and costs universities have include purchasing 

and updating electronic grant management systems, hiring and 

training administrative staff, and then the time spent by the researchers themselves. 

Our third key finding was that while OMB and the funding agencies have made continuing efforts to reduce universities’ administrative workload and costs, these reductions have been limited, and 

we found opportunities for further improvements in a number of 

areas. For example, we found that agencies have not standardized 

certain administrative requirements across agencies such as unnecessary variations that remain in the format and content of biographical sketches as well as in budget forms and budget justifications. We also found that several funding agencies have not fully 
28 

considered opportunities to streamline pre-award requirements. 

For example, NSF has been piling efforts to postpone certain requirements such as detailed budgets until after the grant has been 

awarded but other agencies in our view have not conducted agencywide reviews for similar opportunities to postpone requirements. 

Lastly, we found several areas where funding agencies could consider providing universities with more flexibility including the 

OMB requirements on competing purchases and NIH conflict-of-interest rules. 

Based on these findings, we made four recommendations to OMB 

and the agencies in our review—the Department of Energy, NASA, 

NIH and NSF—to identify and pursue further opportunities to 

streamline administrative requirements on research grants to universities. The agencies generally agreed to take steps to implement 

our recommendations. 

Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski and Chairman Smith, this concludes my prepared remarks. I’m happy to respond to any questions that you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Neumann follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Great. 

I now recognize Mr. Luther for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF MR. JIM LUTHER, 

ASSOCIATE VICE PRESIDENT 

FOR FINANCE & COMPLIANCE OFFICER, 

DUKE UNIVERSITY 

Mr. LUTHER. Good morning, Subcommittee Chairwoman Comstock, Ranking Member Lipinski, and Chairman Smith. I’ll be addressing my comments both from a Duke University perspective 

but also I serve as the Board Chair for the Council on Governmental Relations, which is an associate of 190 research universities, medical centers, and institutes, and I also co-chair the Federal Demonstration Partnerships Administrative Cost Working 

Group. 

I’d like to start by expressing my gratitude for the Subcommittee’s interest in identifying opportunities to more effectively regulate research. Congress has long supported the research enterprise, 

providing almost $63 billion in research funding for fiscal year 

2014 alone. Congress has also expressed concern about the amount 

of time and funding spent on administrative processes required for 

federally funded research. 

The reports discussed today join several previous reports on this 

topic. All have come to similar conclusions, number one, that the 

regulation of research continues to steadily increase; number two, 

that there is a lack of standardization across agencies; and number 

three, that federally funded research could be regulated much more 

efficiently. 

Universities are committed to working with federal partners to 

ensure effective oversight and efficient use of taxpayer funds. This 

commitment has led to a number of successes including a thoughtful development and rollout of the Uniform Guidance, and we continue to work with OMB to overcome challenges related to procurement and sub-recipient monitoring. Successful engagement has historically been heavily dependent on relationships with individual 

agency employees. These relationships can be extremely productive, 

but when the critical staff member departs, so does the productivity of the relationship. 

It also frequently is the case that the university perspective is 

not sought and that regulations do not include material changes 

recommended. An example is the Common Rule. A COGR–APLU 

analysis of comments on the proposed changes found that 74 percent of all responses and approximately 96 percent of responses 

from patients and members of the research community opposed 

proposed changes to the biospecimens on the grounds that they 

would be detrimental to research and health. The Academies report 

suggests that the proposed revisions are marred by omissions, the 

absence of essential elements, and lack of clarity, and ‘‘could be 

detrimental to areas of important research.’’ The Academies report, 

the HHS Secretary’s Advisory Committee on Human Research Protections, and others have called for the proposed rule to be withdrawn, yet we understand that HHS is still trying to move forward 

with this final rule. 
44 

Compounding the issue of engagement is a significant increase in 

federal regulations, 5.8 new or substantially changed regulations 

annually, according to the Academies report. In the last four 

months alone, three regulations, two significant policies, and a 

training requirement were issued. These new regulations and policies will cost each university anywhere from several hundred thousand to several million dollars and result in significant increase in 

administrative and faculty workload. Many associated costs will 

not be reimbursed as administrative costs long ago exceeded the 26 

percent threshold. At Duke, we are approximately $25 million over 

this threshold annually, largely caused by the proliferation of new 

regulations. 

Regarding other major recommendations including in the National Academies report, COGR and the Association of American 

Universities have strongly endorsed H.R. 5583, the University Regulatory Streamlining and Harmonization Act of 2016, and S. 2742, 

Promoting Biomedical Research and Public Health for Patients Act. 

Both would create the Research Policy Board that is the centerpiece of the Academies recommendation and the former, the appointment of an Administrator for the Academic Research Enterprise for Unified Oversight. 

H.R. 5583 proposes that the Research Policy Board be composed 

of federal and university officials charged with reviewing existing 

and proposed regulations with the goal of reducing regulatory burden. No mechanism currently exists to serve this function with respect to research enterprise at large or through many examples of 

non-federal entities serving in a related capacity. Critical discussions with the research community coupled with Congressional and 

GAO oversight would support mutual accountability and increase 

the likelihood of achieving thoughtful and effective policy outcomes. 

This partnership is critical because universities’ share of funding 

for research now constitutes almost 24 percent of total academic 

R&D. 

In summary, COGR and universities like Duke support the findings and recommendations of the Academies and GAO reports and 

the legislation that would implement them. We can’t rely on a 

handful of strategic relationships to safeguard and ensure the effectiveness of the Nation’s $63 billion investment in research, and as 

stated so appropriately in the Research and Development Efficiency Act, administrative burden is ‘‘eroding funds available to 

carry out basic scientific research.’’ With your support, we can 

achieve thoughtful, effective regulations that protect the taxpayers’ 

dollars and maximize results. 

Thank you for your time and interest, and I look forward to answering any questions you may have. 

[The prepared statement of Mr. Luther follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

I now recognize Dr. Cabrera for five minutes. 

TESTIMONY OF DR. A ́ NGEL CABRERA, 

PRESIDENT, GEORGE MASON UNIVERSITY 

Dr. CABRERA. Thank you so much, Chairwoman Comstock and 

Ranking Member Lipinski. Thank you, Chairman Smith, for delaying that departure and holding this very important hearing. 

I bring to you the views and feedback from dozens of researchers 

at George Mason University. Just to set it in context, we are the 

largest public university in Virginia, and we are the newest and 

youngest member of that Carnegie tier I group of highest research 

universities in the country. We conduct research in areas from cybersecurity and computational sciences to proteomics, economics, 

criminology, psychology and many other areas, and we, like all of 

our peers in the group of research universities, are a great example 

of how that research translates not only into new cures and solutions but also into new organizations and enterprises that are driving innovation in our region and in our Nation. 

Now, Chairwoman Comstock, you and some of your staff have 

toured our Institute of Biomedical Innovation, and we really appreciate that visit. You were able to talk with some of those conducting the research and see firsthand how research advances education, leads to jobs and to improved lives, and you saw a glimpse 

of that wonderful research that happens in our institution and in 

many others. I would be remiss, Mr. Lipinski, if I did not extend 

the opportunity for you and your staff to visit at your convenience 

and to show you what we do. 

Now, it doesn’t escape you that to do our work as a public university, we rely on state investments and appropriations. We rely also 

on private contributions and research grants, and very importantly, 

we depend on student tuition. As the investment from state has declined, the pressure on student tuition is creating real issues of access. The issues of regulatory efficiency and the costs that they 

generate at the end of the day impact students and impact the social issues around access to higher education. 

Now, let me provide some specifics on the areas that the GAO 

report highlighted. Many of our researchers do receive awards from 

more than one agency. This means that they have to spend an inordinate amount of time identifying and responding to different requirements regarding proposal submissions, conflict-of-interest purchasing, subrecipient monitoring, reporting and closeout. This problem is compounded by the fact that the success rate of awards in 

many agencies is getting lower while the time and cost of applying 

is getting higher. This paradox is discouraging faculty, many of 

whom balance teaching, mentoring, and research loads from pursuing more research opportunities. 

In terms of export controls, the Academies report correctly points 

out that universities including Mason continue to be concerned 

about efforts by the State Department to modify the definition of 

fundamental research in ITAR. If the result is a restricted definition of fundamental research, that may cause real problems in 

terms of driving innovation and bringing about the resources from 
53 

around the world that sometimes are necessary to drive that innovation. 

We have a great example of innovation in regulation with effort 

reporting. In 2011, Mason was the first of four pilot schools to participate in a payroll certification pilot under the auspices of the 

Federal Demonstration Partnership, and effort reporting is often 

cited as one of the most burdensome administrative requirements 

for researchers. Effort incurred across multiple activities is difficult 

to measure and track, and administration is very inefficient and 

costly. 

With payroll certification, we aim to improve the efficiency and 

at the same time not diminish the accountability. The result of that 

pilot at Mason was a reduction in 85 percent in the reports produced without any negative and adverse impact in the supervision 

in accountability. That’s a great example of how we can have 

smarter processes that really reduce the cost. 

Finally, the Academies report calls for Congress to create a Research Policy Board, and there are many other recommendations 

that we endorse and support. To some extent, Madam Chair, your 

bill 1119, which passed the House, and your bill, Ranking Member 

Lipinski, implement what the National Academies is recommending, and we are grateful to both of you. Your bills will allow 

for broader discussion of that monster that lurks behind every rule, 

the law of unintended consequences. By providing a pause button 

or the ability to raise a red flag and means for redress and revisiting existing rules, you have done a tremendous service to the research enterprise and the Nation’s future innovation. 

Thank you so much. 

[The prepared statement of Dr. Cabrera follows:] 
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Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you, and I now recognize myself 

for five minutes for questions. 

First, I thank all of the witnesses, and again, we appreciate you 

being here today despite it being a quieter day, and this is an important topic, and we appreciate all that you’ve been doing, and I 

did want to actually also echo the invitation to come down to visit 

George Mason if you’d like because—and in particular I really appreciate all the women that you have working on the important research, and they’ve spoken to my Young Women’s Leadership program, and there’s some really exciting cancer research going on 

there as well as Lyme disease, so I particularly appreciate that, although I had a lot at the videogames place too at George Mason, 

so that was pretty—which actually leads into some of these areas 

too surprisingly. So when your kids are out there playing 

videogames, you never know where it can lead to because there’s 

some pretty exciting things going on at George Mason, so I always 

do remind everyone who gets upset about their kids playing 

videogames, we’ve got exciting scientific research that goes into 

medical areas and lots of other things. But I digress. 

So as you mentioned, Dr. Cabrera, George Mason University recently rose in the ranks to be amongst the highest research institutions in the country with the Carnegie classification of institutions 

of higher education, an elite group of the top 115 research universities in the country, and congratulations on that. I think it’s exciting how things are changing. I think we really see that kind of 

growth in so many of these areas so we’re happy that you’re a part 

of it. 

Does the regulatory burden and barriers for applying for and 

managing federal grants make it more difficult for a smaller or less 

resource-rich university to become competitive, and if we really 

want to create this competitive ecosystem that is going to be able 

to do the cutting-edge research that we want, how is this regulatory burden impacting that? 

Dr. CABRERA. Thank you, Chairwoman Comstock, and yes, indeed, it makes it very difficult. In fact, if you look at that cluster 

of 115 universities in that tier I Carnegie classification, you won’t 

see much change from time to time. It tends to be a pretty big barrier of entry for universities that are growing like ours that are 

really building a research infrastructure. Our estimate is that we 

spend about $16 million annually to provide administrative support 

to our PIs to help comply with research regulations. Our estimate 

is that we don’t recover about $2 million of that, which by the way 

if you compare the size of our research enterprise with Duke’s, I 

think our ratios are require similar, and which actually seems to 

highlight that there doesn’t seem to be much economies of scale, 

even as your research enterprise and looks like the burden continues to grow proportionately. So I think it does create a big barrier, not just for a big college, not just for existing large research 

enterprises, but for emerging ones like George Mason. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Could you all estimate maybe in your 

individual institutions, so you have $60 million for the cost, if it 

was streamlined like the pilot that you did, what kind of savings 

do you estimate you would see? And then, of course, how would 
64 

that be plowed back into the research? And then the others too, if 

you might address that? 

Dr. CABRERA. Well, the pilot that we conducted, you can consider 

that it’s in a relatively smaller side of the many aspects of regulation that we deal with, but our estimates that might reduce—just 

by that simple change, we may be saving north of $50,000 a year. 

So what this indicates is not just the amount of this. If you expand 

that kind of thinking to all the areas of regulation, those numbers 

very quickly add up. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Okay. Mr. Luther? 

Mr. LUTHER. Yes. I think what I’d add to that is, the amount 

that departments and administrations support the research mission at Duke is significant and growing, probably $150 million, 

about $25 million of that that we don’t recover. It’s over the administrative cap. 

I think the other key issue, though, is the avoided costs, right? 

As new policy comes down the pike, do we have to add additional 

staff, do we have to add additional administration and technology 

and business processes, because for every one of these regulations, 

we have to figure out how to support it centrally, how we have to 

roll it out to the departments, how we train this, and then ultimately can we do this in a way that doesn’t further contribute to 

that 42 percent of the funded faculty members’ time. That’s what 

this is all about from any university’s perspective is how can we 

do it in an efficient way so as not to distract the faculty member 

from doing their research. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Exactly. Thank you. 

And Dr. Faulkner or Mr. Neumann, if you have any comments 

on that? 

Dr. FAULKNER. I’m not currently president of the University of 

Texas so I don’t have good, immediate numbers for you, but let me 

just make the point that actually was introduced by Mr. Luther 

that I think we would save money if we improved the regulatory 

environment but we would also save the invaluable time of faculty 

members and research investigators generally, not just faculty 

members. But that intellectual power, the power to carry forward 

research, can’t be replaced. That’s the indispensable asset, and in 

order to maintain the capacity of American research, we need to 

get as much of that brainpower as possible dedicated—— 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. On task? 

Dr. FAULKNER. But on the resource side, the dollars that institutions are putting into the support of compliance and administrative 

activity is quite significant and has to come from somewhere. So 

it competes with everything else that the institution is doing including its ability to support students including its ability to deliver quality undergraduate programs, including its ability to deliver quality graduate programs. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. 

Mr. NEUMANN. The only thing I’ll add is that we didn’t focus specifically on the costs of some of these administrative requirements 

but rather a little more deeply at the types of things universities 

had to do to address them, and certainly where they found things 

like the payroll certification pilot where they could reduce those 

burdens, as Dr. Cabrera pointed out, they had significant savings 
65 

of administrative time, the researchers’ time. So that’s, you know, 

the kind of—so we tried to provide some examples of the things 

that universities are doing to comply with these requirements to 

get a sense of what’s behind these numbers that we’ve been hearing about. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Great. Okay. Now I’ve gone over my 

time so I yield to Mr. Lipinski. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. Chairwoman Comstock, I’m intrigued 

now by the videogames at George Mason and what the connection 

is here. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Game Institute. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Game Institute. Okay. I’ll have to come out and 

visit. 

I want to say that obviously the purpose of regulations is to 

make sure that there’s accountability, we try to rid any kind of 

waste or fraud but I think it’s very important as Dr. Faulkner had 

talked about in his statement. I just want to read this from the National Academies report here. I think it’s very important to make 

sure we focus on ‘‘Continuing expansion of the federal regulatory 

system and its ever-growing requirements are diminishing the effectiveness of the Nation’s research investment.’’ 

As I said in my opening statement, we are unfortunately seeing 

the flattening out and sometimes diminishing of research dollars at 

the federal level, unfortunately, and we cannot afford to diminish 

those dollars further through regulation, and I think it’s important 

that everyone understands what this really means, and as Dr. 

Faulkner talked about, the waste of time of researchers, that really 

is a great loss not just to those individuals but to our entire research enterprise and in our country, and so I think it’s very important that we make sure that people realize that. 

I wanted to have a couple of our witnesses expand on a couple 

of the points that were—that they made. The Research Policy 

Board, I want to ask Mr. Luther first, what do you see as the value 

of the Federal Government? Can you just expand on the value of 

the Federal Government working closely with institutions in developing the regulations and requirements for research? 

Mr. LUTHER. Thank you. You know, as I was preparing for this 

and reviewing the materials, I think to many of us, both at the university level as well as at COGR, the Research Policy Board is kind 

of the enabler for everything else, right? There’s other organizations. There’s the research business models. There’s the Federal 

Demonstration Partnership. But the Research Policy Board, the 

way it’s been suggested, is the one group that has all of the appropriate stakeholders at the table to develop it and talk through the 

implementation, and what we’re seeing is, that transparency of the 

development process as well as input into the implementation process is so critical to the efficiency of it but also to the accountability 

of it, the accountability going both ways to good policy as well as 

how can institutions do it in an effective way and meet the goals 

of that. And I think creation of a board like this that has the same 

objectives of efficient, quality policy development and implementation is so critical, and as we look specifically at the Common Rule 

and the biospecimens, I have absolutely no doubt that the NIH has 

good reasons for the position they’re taking right now as they look 
66 

at this, but again, in the APLU–COGR review, there’s 96 percent 

of the respondents both at universities and research subjects that 

basically are questioning this and questioning the impact this 

would have on research. 

And so again, I’m sure the NIH has good reason for the position 

they’re taking, but again, if universities and other stakeholders are 

the table to evaluate this and participate in it, it would be a much 

more transparent and accountable process. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. 

Dr. Faulkner, do you have anything you want to add on that? 

Dr. FAULKNER. Well, that was a beautiful speech that Mr. Luther 

just gave. Let me just add two points, though. One is, I’d like to 

emphasize the word ‘‘anticipatory,’’ which is—it’s used in that report, and I believe I’m speaking accurately about the sentiments of 

the committee who wrote the report that they believe that the ability to anticipate new issues and to be able to work those issues before they really have to reach regulatory implementation is the key 

to maintaining a sane and functional overall regulatory burden, 

and that’s one of the things that we wanted to achieve with the 

RPB. 

And I had a second point, which has flown out of my mind, so 

I’ll just turn my microphone off. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. That happens to me all the time. 

Dr. Cabrera, do you have anything to add? You don’t have to. 

Dr. CABRERA. No, just to emphasize—and I think the way you articulated question, I couldn’t agree more with that preamble and 

since I don’t think none of the recommendations from these reports 

question the importance of good regulation, of good accountability, 

and no one is, I guess, advocating for weak accountability. On the 

contrary, I think the words that even both of your bills use, you 

know, harmonize, streamline, eliminate duplication, improving coordination, those are the right directions to take in all these efforts 

and that can only be done with these coordinating bodies like the 

ones that your bill endorses. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Well, if I can take a little more time, I wanted to 

at least briefly touch on something else that Dr. Faulkner raised 

about the Inspector General. The 1978 Inspector General Act says 

the purpose of the IG also is to promote economy, efficiency and effectiveness in the administration of programs, and you touched 

upon that in your statement. Can you expand on that? Obviously 

you don’t think that—or it seems to me that you are saying that 

that’s not always the understanding that the IG brings to part of 

what their job is. 

Dr. FAULKNER. Well, I think that the committee fully recognizes 

the need for the Inspectors General to focus on waste, fraud, and 

abuse. What we also recognize, however, is that the research enterprise in the United States as it’s implementing in the research 

partnership with academic institutions already has a large volume 

of audit involved in it. Every institution is audited every year on 

its research activity. The history of Inspector General engagement 

with the research enterprise is not one that has yielded large trophies in terms of recovered funds. There are, of course, isolated 

cases where problems have been explored and where remediation 

has been required, but that’s not the ordinary story. A more com-
67 

mon story is that Inspectors General and the agency that they’re 

supporting or engaged with have different interpretations of what 

federal policy ought to be or federal practice ought to be in financial management of research grants, and the dispute which is essentially between two federal actors, will get fought out on a battle 

ground in an institution that then has to spend large amounts of 

money to go through the process of the audit that’s being used to 

fight the battle. This, in our judgment, is not really constructive. 

The battle between the federal players should be fought out here 

and not there. 

And we do recognize also that in the charter that you read, Representative Lipinski, there is a direct reference to giving the responsibility to the Inspectors General for the improvement of efficiency and effectiveness and we’re simply asking for a rebalancing 

of the approach in this area where there’s already so much audit 

activity to pay attention to that part of the mission. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Does the two months’ summary salary issue at 

NSF fall into this? 

Dr. FAULKNER. Well, that’s been one of the areas where there’s 

a dispute between the IG and the agency itself over what the policy 

should be. They have to settle what the policy is and we carry it 

out. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you very much, and I thank the Chairwoman for being here. I know you didn’t have to be here this morning, so I appreciate it. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. We appreciate the professor too being 

here with his expertise. 

Let’s see. I wanted to see if we could maybe draw a picture for 

us. I’m thinking when I visited George Mason, Dr. Luchini I guess 

was named one of the 40 most brilliant people in the world working 

on Lyme disease research, I think some cancer research, because 

the nanotechnology is kind of coming together in some ways, or Dr. 

Petricoin, who was also with us on some of those visits. How is 

their day and time—because when I think of having the asset of 

one of the 40 most brilliant people in the world working on these 

important diseases and chronic conditions that we want to cure 

and find, you know, new information on, how is their day impacted? How is their work impacted because of these regulations? 

Maybe if you can give us a picture of what Dr. Luchini or Dr. 

Petricoin have to do as a result of these regulations, that helps sort 

of give us the urgency of, we want them on task, and having seen 

some of those brilliant things that they’re working on, I really don’t 

like the thought of them having to do much else besides put their 

brains to this good work. 

Dr. CABRERA. Sure. Dr. Luchini, by the way, is one of those thousands of bright scientists from outside of the United States that 

every year choose to come and join our universities because this is 

where the tools and the environments that they think were they 

can have the biggest impact, and her recognition indeed was not 

just as a top scientist but as a top young scientist, and this is very 

important because I believe when I talk to our faculty, it is young 

scientists that suffer the burden of these regulations more directly 

and more personally. I’m guessing that people like Dr. Petricoin 

and well-seasoned scientists have somehow developed their own 
68 

survival routines, on how to deal with all these things, and they 

figure out a way to do it. 

My concern is that the younger scientists may see this as yet another unsurmountable barrier to do what they want to do, which 

is to spend time in the lab trying to explore how to best test people 

for Lyme disease or how to come up with a new personalized treatment for cancer. So just like I mentioned earlier that I believe that 

this complex regulatory machinery creates a burden for young universities that are building the research infrastructure at a more 

micro level, it does the same for younger researchers. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. No, that’s great, and seeing how she inspires the students too and to get to capture their imagination and 

stay in working in this, I think we need bring the Uber economy 

to the scientific research, right? Get a little bit more flexibility. 

Okay. We wanted to cover some of the things that others who 

aren’t here might have covered. 

Dr. Faulkner, the centerpiece of the Academies report is the creation of a self-funded Research Policy Board to include members of 

both the research community and government agencies. Did the 

study committee have any concerns that it would be just another 

layer of bureaucracy? Because as we come in and look at these 

things, that’s what I’m trying to figure out, you know, what is the 

ideal picture of a day in the life of these researchers and how we’re 

going to provide accountability without interrupting the important 

work? So as we come up with these solutions, how can we make 

sure we’re not adding more bureaucracy instead of peeling it back? 

Dr. FAULKNER. Well, I think that’s a good question, Madam 

Chairwoman. The goal certainly is not to add a layer, and I believe 

that with the design we’ve laid out, that would not happen. This 

is not an approval body. It’s not I think in the line of what would 

be required to get things done, but it is meant to be a coordinating 

body, and as I emphasized earlier, an anticipatory body. 

One of the points that Representative Lipinski made earlier is 

that the volume of regulatory activity has grown over time and continues to grow. We can bet that it’s going to continue to grow because as research goes on, it uncovers issues that require attention. 

We can all sit here today and recognize that in the years ahead, 

we’re going to have to more regulatory activity that addresses some 

of the genetic issues that are clearly in the field of view right now. 

So we know that as research goes on, new issues come into the 

picture. We need more coordination and some capacity for the 

whole community, the researchers’ side and the funders’ side, to 

get together and try to find ways to get to the optimal regulatory 

picture, which is going to take continuous editing as we have to 

bring in the capacity for additional things, and perhaps we can develop other devices that speed up or simplify or lower the cost of 

some of the things we’re already doing. 

So I guess the answer I would give you is, we desperately need 

the coordination, and the coordination and the anticipation is the 

key to keeping this as sane as we can keep it going forward. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. You know, one of the things that I’ve 

heard from researchers as we talk about particularly in the area 

of medical research and some of the rapid pace that things are developing, the doctors, you know, if you’re in any particular field, 
69 

you can’t possibly know everything that’s going on that’s out there, 

and we all get in our silos and all, and they talk a lot about—I 

mean, some of the researchers and technology people now—we’ve 

had—in my area we see people who are very engaged in the technology committee are merging into the medical area and wanting 

to, you know, use technology with medicine and find ways to get 

information out there, and they talk a lot about having more transparency, which is very different from how our medical research is 

done today. You know, you’re in a study, you don’t know all the 

other things that are going on in the patients, and we don’t have 

this transparent process, you know, for good—I know there are reasons why we don’t but I have seen people now in the medical area 

talk more about just getting more of this information out there, you 

know, just having it all out there for everyone to kind of come in 

and look at and, you know, you kind of have that check and balance by having information out there instead of having to have all 

these boards, having, you know, all this regulatory process that you 

really get it out there and you have the vast public being able to 

check it. You know, it’s like a spell check system out there because 

everybody else gets to look at what you’re doing and saying hey, 

did you connect this with this and, you just have a lot more people 

in there helping you, and is there—and I know, I’m not articulating 

this very well—but this is what I had expressed to me in some way 

from the technology side of this is, how do we open this up a lot 

more and change that way of thinking in research that it’s just 

going to be open source type of information. Is it something that 

you all have discussed in some way or heard about too? Just any 

of you to address. 

Dr. FAULKNER. Shall I try? 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Sure. 

Dr. FAULKNER. I think actually you’re addressing the question of 

the sort of review and self-correction of science as it occurs. You 

know, historically we’ve published things in journals and people 

read the journals and they may do verifying or testing experiments 

or other kinds of activity of their own. As the scientific enterprise 

has gotten more complicated, and as information technology has 

dramatically improved, the possibility exists of providing larger 

amounts of information including original data, which by and large 

has not been part of that publication proceeding activity over the 

years. So I think there is a lot of discussion in the scientific world 

about whether by being more open with a larger fraction of what 

investigators have produced including their original data we might 

not be ahead. The Academy committee really didn’t address that 

issue. We’re addressing not the question of review for validity of 

scientific work; we’re talking about true regulation, I mean, financial regulations, what you can do with human subjects and that 

sort of thing. So our work was all on the other side here. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Okay. 

Mr. LUTHER. If I can add to that, you know, there is, I think it’s a 2013 OSTP requirement that for federal agencies with over $100 

million in annual expenditures, there’s a public access process, and 

I think the rollout of that is going to be ripe for something like a 

Research Policy Board because that regulation requires that for all 

peer-reviewed publications that all supporting digital data as well 
70 

as all the metadata be made available. It requires that it’s stored 

for long-term preservation and publicly accessible to search, and it 

requires—with a goal of maximizing the potential to create the new 

business opportunities. And I think that’s wonderful, right? The 

Federal Government has funded this research, it’s data that can be 

leveraged to do other wonderful things, but as we look at how we’re 

going to execute on that, one example that we’ve discussed with a 

faculty member is that the imaging data related to one mouse is 

terabytes upon terabytes upon terabytes of data, and that would 

have to be made publicly available with metadata and supported 

for future research, wonderful idea, but how we do that and how 

we execute on that and how it happens and orders of magnitude. 

We’ve talked to peers out in the Midwest that do weather research. 

Well, the quantity of weather research and the data they create or 

the space program is just orders of magnitude. So the concept is 

wonderful but the idea behind a Research Policy Board that’s 

where all the players at the table are working towards the same 

strategic goal and thinking through how to operationalize that is 

what’s so critical because if the regulation just comes out and says 

do it, it’s the faculty member that’s going to have to, that’s going 

to know the data. We as administrators are going to try to help but 

we don’t have the tool set, and it will create an immense amount 

of burden. 

Dr. CABRERA. Just to add to that, I mean, the possibilities that 

are created by new technologies are simply phenomenal in terms 

of access to data and immediacy of that data, not having to wait 

the number of months and sometimes years that a traditional publication cycle would enforce. The key and I think some of the biggest debates we’re having in scientific communities is how to balance that desire for immediacy in access with the power of the 

peer-review process, which is really one of the central pillars of the 

scientific enterprise and not lose that because that’s one of the 

most important sort of research quality control processes that we’ve 

developed throughout the years. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Great. Thank you. And I will yield to 

Mr. Lipinski. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I think we’ve covered many things here. I just 

want to see if there’s anything—I’ll open up. Usually the Chair 

probably would do this, but are there any—anything that any of 

the witnesses would like to add that they think we haven’t covered 

here that are important to get on the—to get on the record? Any 

additional—Dr. Cabrera? 

Dr. CABRERA. If any—the only thing, I think it’s been said, but 

I just wanted to emphasize the tremendous amount of consensus 

and agreement that the NAS report has generated, so this is not 

just an isolated point of view. I think it really reflects the point of 

view of the research universities of this country. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. LUTHER. I was just going to add that I think the GAO report 

set out, you know, to really look at the university community’s concerns and in a sense validated those concerns, and if agencies take 

action based on our recommendations, we think they can continue 

to make some progress in this area which, you know, we did identify a couple of areas that really do need further look, you know, 
71 

in terms of streamlining, standardizing some of these requirements 

and delaying some and doing things that make more sense based 

on the risk like, you know, the purchase requirement. So I think 

that would be really important. I’m glad that you’re holding this 

hearing, and I think having this will ensure that agencies will take 

action based on our recommendations. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. Thank you. 

Mr. Luther? 

Mr. LUTHER. Yes. Thank you. I would just like to say I hope you 

sense the commitment from universities, certainly from our comments as well as, you know, the communications that COGR and 

AAU and FDP and many of the other organizations have had. It’s 

all about the commitment to support the research and make it better, and we do things internally. In fact, at Duke, we have in essence kind of a research policy board internally that reviews policies. We have a couple of senior leaders that meet every Tuesday 

morning and have met for about the last ten years to look specifically at research issues, and it’s a combination of financial, administration and faculty leadership, and it’s there to address those 

issues, to address the resource needs and so forth. 

And then my final comment would be, as I mentioned in my 

opening statement, there are lots of examples of highly functioning 

relationships of where we’ve worked through things, the uniform 

guidance with NIH, we’ve had NIH, NSF and DOD. We’ve had 

some really positive discussion about the closeout process and subaccounting. But as I mentioned, much of that is very relationshipbased. There’s a handful of absolutely wonderful people that are 

just as committed, if not more than we are, to work through this. 

We would hope that that research board, research policy board, is 

structured that same way, to have the committed individuals that 

are accountable that push the objectives of good, effective policy. 

Dr. FAULKNER. I think we’ve done well with the subject today, so 

I won’t add anything further. 

Mr. LIPINSKI. I completely agree. I thank the witnesses for your 

testimony. I think all of you did a very good job of explaining the 

real need for regulatory relief when it comes to academic research 

and the regulations. So thank you all for your testimony. 

Chairwoman COMSTOCK. Thank you. And I also thank the witnesses for their testimony, and Mr. Lipinski for joining me here 

today and bringing his expertise to bear here. 

It is really exciting to hear from people on the front lines, and 

I invite you to continue the dialog with us on how we can best help 

you best utilize the resources that we’re providing and make sure 

we have the best policies in place for you to be able to do the good 

work that your researchers are doing because there is so—you 

know, I think we are on the cusp of some really incredible research 

developments that are out there, and we want to make sure we are 

putting the best policies we can in place, so we have no pride of 

authorship on our end. We’d love to have you come and help us improve that. You know, we’re looking at Mr. Lipinski’s bill too, so 

I think we want to make sure we have the best ideas in place. So 

we really, really appreciate your expertise and talent and the importance of attracting that talent and making sure we have the 

best talent here working and working on task. 
72 

So I thank you, and the record will remain open for two weeks 

for additional written comments and any written questions from 

Members who are here or not able to be here. 

So thank you again, and the hearing is adjourned. 

[Whereupon, at 11:17 a.m., the Subcommittee was adjourned.] 
(73) 

Appendix I 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS
74 

ANSWERS TO POST-HEARING QUESTIONS

Responses by Dr. Larry R. Faulkner 
75 
76 
77 
78 
79 
80 
81 

Responses by Mr. John Neumann 
82 
83 
84 

Responses by Mr. Jim Luther 
85 
86 
87 
88 

Responses by Dr. A ́ ngel Cabrera 
(89) 

Appendix II 

ADDITIONAL MATERIAL FOR THE RECORD
90 

STATEMENT SUBMITTED BY COMMITTEE RANKING MEMBER

EDDIE BERNICE JOHSNON

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