[House Hearing, 113 Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
REDUCING THE ADMINISTRATIVE WORKLOAD
FOR FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH
=======================================================================
JOINT HEARING
BEFORE THE
SUBCOMMITTEE ON OVERSIGHT &
SUBCOMMITTEE ON RESEARCH AND TECHNOLOGY
COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
ONE HUNDRED THIRTEENTH CONGRESS
SECOND SESSION
__________
JUNE 12, 2014
__________
Serial No. 113-79
__________
Printed for the use of the Committee on Science, Space, and Technology
Available via the World Wide Web: http://science.house.gov
______
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COMMITTEE ON SCIENCE, SPACE, AND TECHNOLOGY
HON. LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas, Chair
DANA ROHRABACHER, California EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
RALPH M. HALL, Texas ZOE LOFGREN, California
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
Wisconsin DONNA F. EDWARDS, Maryland
FRANK D. LUCAS, Oklahoma FREDERICA S. WILSON, Florida
RANDY NEUGEBAUER, Texas SUZANNE BONAMICI, Oregon
MICHAEL T. McCAUL, Texas ERIC SWALWELL, California
PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia DAN MAFFEI, New York
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi ALAN GRAYSON, Florida
MO BROOKS, Alabama JOSEPH KENNEDY III, Massachusetts
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois SCOTT PETERS, California
LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana DEREK KILMER, Washington
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas AMI BERA, California
BILL POSEY, Florida ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming MARC VEASEY, Texas
DAVID SCHWEIKERT, Arizona JULIA BROWNLEY, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota KATHERINE CLARK, Massachusetts
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma
RANDY WEBER, Texas
CHRIS COLLINS, New York
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
------
Subcommittee on Oversight
HON. PAUL C. BROUN, Georgia, Chair
F. JAMES SENSENBRENNER, JR., DAN MAFFEI, New York
Wisconsin ERIC SWALWELL, California
BILL POSEY, Florida SCOTT PETERS, California
KEVIN CRAMER, North Dakota EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
------
Subcommittee on Research and Technology
HON. LARRY BUCSHON, Indiana, Chair
STEVEN M. PALAZZO, Mississippi DANIEL LIPINSKI, Illinois
MO BROOKS, Alabama FEDERICA WILSON, Florida
RANDY HULTGREN, Illinois ZOE LOFGREN, California
STEVE STOCKMAN, Texas SCOTT PETERS, California
CYNTHIA LUMMIS, Wyoming AMI BERA, California
THOMAS MASSIE, Kentucky DEREK KILMER, Washington
JIM BRIDENSTINE, Oklahoma ELIZABETH ESTY, Connecticut
CHRIS COLLINS, New York ROBIN KELLY, Illinois
BILL JOHNSON, Ohio EDDIE BERNICE JOHNSON, Texas
LAMAR S. SMITH, Texas
C O N T E N T S
June 12, 2014
Page
Witness List..................................................... 2
Hearing Charter.................................................. 3
Opening Statements
Statement by Representative Paul C. Broun, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Oversight, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology, U.S.
House of Representatives....................................... 7
Written Statement............................................ 8
Statement by Representative Dan Maffei, Ranking Minority Member,
Subcommittee on Oversight, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 9
Written Statement............................................ 10
Statement by Representative Larry Bucshon, Chairman, Subcommittee
on Research and Technology, Committee on Science, Space, and
Technology, U.S. House of Representatives...................... 11
Written Statement............................................ 12
Statement by Representative Daniel Lipinski, Ranking Minority
Member, Subcommittee on Research and Technology, Committee on
Science, Space, and Technology, U.S. House of Representatives.. 12
Written Statement............................................ 14
Written statement by Representative Eddie Bernice Johnson,
Ranking Member, Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
U.S. House of Representatives.................................. 15
Witnesses:
Dr. Arthur Bienenstock, Chairman, Task Force on Administrative
Burden, National Science Board
Oral Statement............................................... 16
Written Statement............................................ 18
Dr. Susan Wyatt Sedwick, Chair, Federal Demonstration
Partnership; President, FDP Foundation
Oral Statement............................................... 29
Written Statement............................................ 31
Dr. Gina Lee-Glauser, Vice President for Research, Syracuse
University, Office of Research
Oral Statement............................................... 49
Written Statement............................................ 51
The Honorable Allison Lerner, Inspector General, National Science
Foundation, Office of Inspector General
Oral Statement............................................... 56
Written Statement............................................ 58
Discussion....................................................... 66
Appendix I: Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Dr. Arthur Bienenstock, Chairman, Task Force on Administrative
Burden, National Science Board................................. 84
Dr. Susan Wyatt Sedwick, Chair, Federal Demonstration
Partnership; President, FDP Foundation......................... 97
Dr. Gina Lee-Glauser, Vice President for Research, Syracuse
University, Office of Research................................. 110
The Honorable Allison Lerner, Inspector General, National Science
Foundation, Office of Inspector General........................ 119
REDUCING THE ADMINISTRATIVE WORKLOAD
FOR FEDERALLY FUNDED RESEARCH
----------
THURSDAY, JUNE 12, 2014
House of Representatives,
Subcommittees on Oversight &
Research and Technology
Committee on Science, Space, and Technology,
Washington, D.C.
The Subcommittees met, pursuant to call, at 9:05 a.m., in
Room 2318 of the Rayburn House Office Building, Hon. Paul Broun
[Chairman of the Subcommittee on Oversight] presiding.
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Chairman Broun. Good morning, everyone. This is the joint
hearing of the Subcommittee on Oversight and the Subcommittee
on Research and Technology, and we will call this meeting to
order.
Welcome to today's joint hearing titled ``Reducing the
Administrative Workload for Federally Funded Research.'' In
front of you are packets containing the written testimony,
biographies and Truth in Testimony disclosures for today's
witnesses.
Before we get started, since this is a joint hearing
involving two Subcommittees, I want to explain how we will
operate procedurally so that all Members understand how the
question-and-answer period will be handled. We will recognize
those Members present at the gavel in order of seniority on the
full Committee and those coming in after the gavel will be
recognized in order of their arrival. I now recognize myself
for five minutes for an opening statement.
Let me begin by extending a warm welcome to our witnesses,
and thank you all for appearing today bright and early. In
fact, Dr. Lee-Glauser, I understand you drove all the way from
Syracuse to come today, and we really appreciate your taking
all that effort to do so. Welcome to all of you.
Earlier this year, the National Science Board issued a
report that examines concerns raised by educational
institutions on the paperwork required of each of them when
applying for Federal funds for research. The report references
work done by an association, also represented here today, which
identified through a couple of surveys that on average,
researchers spend 42 percent of their application time on
meeting administrative requirements. That is a massive drain on
researchers' time and resources, and means they are spending
that much less time on conducting active research, which is
their primary objective.
Forty-two percent sounds to me to be an extraordinarily
high number. I have often spoken against the bureaucracies
associated with a large federal government, and it appears that
our educational institutions may indeed be victims of
bureaucratic red tape. As such, it seems fair to explore
solutions such as harmonizing and streamlining federal
regulations and reporting requirements. It also makes sense to
eliminate ineffective federal regulations while also requiring
universities to increase their efficiency and effectiveness.
But, as with most issues that appear before this Committee,
there are many sides to consider, and another one of our
witnesses today, the Inspector General for the National Science
Foundation, will provide us with her perspective as an auditor,
which is quite different. While everyone generally agrees that
efforts to reduce these administrative burdens should not be at
the expense of transparency and accountability, it is the
auditor who actually reviews grants for waste, fraud, abuse and
mismanagement.
Consequently, I am interested in learning about not only
how the federal government can and needs to do a better job in
cutting down red tape to bring that 42 percent number down, but
also about the tools, or in this case, the paperwork the NSF
Inspector General needs to access in order to do her job
effectively.
As a physician and a man of science, I can appreciate the
value to our nation and to our students of research
universities' work to sustain the science, technology,
engineering and mathematics workforce. The United States relies
greatly on the strength and success of our universities in
order to remain a world leader in science and technology. But
it shouldn't be a surprise to most of you that when it comes to
spending taxpayer dollars, I have some well-known opinions on
how much, or how little, the federal government should spend
and where such funds should go.
Don't get me wrong. Making sure our science agencies are
funded at the appropriate authorization levels is important,
but it is that definition of ``appropriate'' that is critical.
If we really want to reduce the administrative burden on
institutions, then all we have to do is reduce the size of the
administration. No money, no problem. But this is a discussion
for another day, of course.
I look forward to today's hearing, which I anticipate will
inform us on how to reduce the administrative workload for
federally funded research without compromising the federal
responsibility to ensure tax money is spent in the manner
intended.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Broun follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Oversight Chairman Paul Broun
Good morning. Let me begin by extending a warm welcome to our
witnesses, and thank you all for appearing today bright and early.
Earlier this year, the National Science Board issued a report that
examines concerns raised by educational institutions on the paperwork
required of them when applying for federal funds for research. The
report references work done by an association, also represented here
today, which identified through a couple of surveys that on average,
researchers spend 42 percent of their application time on meeting
administrative requirements. That is a massive drain on researchers'
time and resources, and means they are spending that much less time on
conducting active research, which is their primary objective.
Forty-two percent sounds to me to be an extraordinarily high
number. I have often spoken against the bureaucracies associated with a
large federal government, and it appears that our educational
institutions may indeed be victims of bureaucratic red tape. As such,
it seems fair to explore solutions such as harmonizing and streamlining
federal regulations and reporting requirements. It also makes sense to
eliminate ineffective federal regulations while also requiring
universities to increase their efficiency and effectiveness.
But, as with most issues that appear before this Committee, there
are many sides to consider, and another one of our witnesses today, the
Inspector General for the National Science Foundation, will provide us
with her perspective as an auditor, which is quite different. While
everyone generally agrees that efforts to reduce these administrative
burdens should not be at the expense of transparency and
accountability, it is the auditor who actually reviews grants for
waste, fraud, abuse and mismanagement. Consequently, I am interested in
learning about not only how the federal government can--and needs--to
do a better job in cutting down red tape to bring that 42 percent
number down, but also about the tools, or in this case, the paperwork
the NSF Inspector General needs to access in order to do her job
effectively.
As a physician and man of science, I can appreciate the value to
our nation and to our students of research universities' work to
sustain the science, technology, engineering and mathematics workforce.
The United States relies greatly on the strength and success of our
universities in order to remain a world leader in science and
technology. But it shouldn't be a surprise to most of you that when it
comes to spending taxpayer dollars, I have some well-known opinions on
how much--or how little--the federal government should spend, and where
such funds should go. Don't get me wrong, making sure our science
agencies are funded at the appropriate authorization levels is
important, but it is that definition of appropriate that is critical.
If we really want to reduce the administrative burden on institutions,
then all we have to do is reduce the size of the administration--no
money, no problem. But that is a discussion for another day. I look
forward to today's hearing, which I anticipate will inform us on how to
reduce the administrative workload for federally funded research
without compromising the federal responsibility to ensure taxpayer
money is spent in the manner intended.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, and now I recognize my friend
and Ranking Member, the gentleman from New York, Mr. Maffei,
for an opening statement. Mr. Maffei, you are recognized for
five minutes.
Mr. Maffei. I thank my friend and Chairman for not only for
recognizing me but for also holding this hearing. I think this
is an extremely important hearing. I am actually particularly
pleased that one of my constituents, Dr. Gina Lee-Glauser, is
here, and as you mentioned, had to make a great personal
sacrifice to come down. Central New York isn't as far as
Georgia but it is still quite a drive. Fortunately, we are not
in the winter weather where it would have been almost
impossible. But I know that the Committee will value her advice
and insights about all of us thinking about these issues.
Regulations can certainly add to the burdens and hurdles of
researchers, but we have to weigh the benefits of those
regulations against the cost. I want to thank Dr. Bienenstock
and Dr. Sedwick for bringing their thoughtful reports to our
attention. Those studies provide plenty of examples of places
where we can pare back on the bureaucratic burdens to free up
our professors to do the work we really want them to do.
I am also very pleased to have Mrs. Lerner here to tell us
what information really is necessary to collect to avoid fraud
and wasteful grants. That is so important.
With scientists spending 40 percent of their time perhaps
on this paperwork, and I have even seen larger amounts of time,
it is extremely important to make sure that we reduce anything
unnecessary to allow them to spend more of their time doing
science, but I would be, I think, remiss if I didn't bring up
that so much time and energy of a researcher simply comes from
applying for grants, the same grants, the same research project
over and over and over again, and with 80 percent of
applications for grants going unfunded, even very, very
promising proposals are not funded simply because there are
insufficient funds. The researchers spend an enormous amount of
time chasing money from an increasingly smaller pot.
Unfortunately, the FIRST Act that we marked up a few weeks
ago in the full Committee failed to provide an authorization
that even matches the already constrained level offered by the
appropriators. Now, I am not trying to be partisan on this. I
actually believe the President also has not done enough in
terms of funding science and in terms of real buying power, the
cost of science. We have seen that the actual funds have gone
down for research from the federal government, and by failing
to provide more robust funding, I fear that we consign many
researchers to hours and hours of unfunded effort that will
four out of five times only result only in failure. That also
constitutes a huge hidden cost, and we need science--we need
scientists in this country to do the science, not paperwork
burdens, not applying again and again and again for the same
grant because there is so little funding.
Now, I realize there are a lot of burdens obviously on
federal funds, but if we don't do it, Mr. Chairman, I fear that
first of all, competitors such as China and others will
overtake us very quickly in terms of research on science but
also we are putting our society at a far higher cost. This is a
capital investment when we invest in scientific research. It is
not the same thing as throwing money out the window. In fact,
societies for thousands and thousands of years, even if they
had zero social programs, still invested in scientific
research, and those that didn't did it at their peril.
So I am very, very grateful to you for having this hearing.
I think it is very important to reduce the paperwork burden but
I do want to make sure that we put it in the proper context,
that it isn't the only thing that is going to solve the problem
of scientists spending so much time doing things other than
science, and I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Maffei follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Oversight
Ranking Minority Member Dan Maffei
Mr. Chairman, I am happy we are holding a hearing on this important
subject. While I am grateful to all the witnesses who are here today, I
am particularly pleased that the Vice President for Research at
Syracuse University, Dr. Gina Lee-Glauser, is able to join us. I know
her well and value her advice and insight to inform my thinking about
policy related to our Universities.
There are many who think that academics have it easy, but I can
tell you that the academics I have known--many of them at Syracuse
University--are among the hardest working people you will ever meet.
Many professors have to juggle their teaching, their research and their
University and community service. So when I hear from many researchers
about the additional burdens of the ``time and effort'' reporting
system, I am not the least bit surprised.
My hat is off to all the teachers and researchers who educate and
innovate. It is hard work, and sometimes it does not receive the
recognition it deserves, but it is essential to building the kind of
country and world we want our children to inherit.
Regulations can certainly add to the burdens and hurdles of our
researchers, but we have to weigh the benefits of those regulations
against the costs. I want to thank Dr. Beinenstock and Dr. Sedwick for
bringing their very thoughtful reports to our attention. Those studies
provide plenty of examples of places where we can pare back on
bureaucratic burdens to free up our professors to do the work we really
want them doing.
In this, I think there is no disagreement across the aisle. We both
want to reduce unnecessary regulations. That said, I find this
hearing's timing to be unfortunate. We are receiving testimony on ways
to reduce the burden on researchers just two weeks after the Committee
finished marking up the National Science Foundation (NSF) authorization
in the FIRST Act. That would have been a perfect opportunity to craft
legislation that would have given statutory guidance to NSF about
tackling reductions in regulatory burdens. Instead of providing
meaningful guidance, the FIRST Act just tells Office of Science and
Technology Policy (OSTP) to start thinking about doing something.
I also have to say that the FIRST Act itself creates new regulatory
burdens, either directly or indirectly, on researchers. It also
increases administrative overhead at NSF, which will drain funds away
from research to support the new array of compliance requirements
invented by the Majority.
Lastly, there is another area of administrative burden that the
Committee contributes to. Reading through the testimony, it is clear
that one of the largest time and energy sinks on researcher's time
comes in the form of simply applying for grants. With 80 percent of the
applications going unfunded, even very, very promising proposals are
not funded simply because there are insufficient funds. Researchers
spend an enormous amount of time chasing money from an increasingly
smaller pot. The FIRST Act failed to provide an authorization that even
matches the already-constrained level offered by the appropriators. By
failing to provide more robust funding, the Majority consigns many
researchers to hours of unfunded effort that will, four out of
fivetimes result only in failure. That constitutes its own hidden cost
on researchers.
So, I approach this hearing with a sense of gratitude that we can
get so much good information on the record, but also aware of the irony
in the topic and timing of this hearing.
Yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Maffei. Surely you are not
suggesting we get rid of social programs as a Democrat.
Mr. Maffei. Surely I am not. I am just drawing a
comparison, though I do think we could do those more
efficiently as well.
Chairman Broun. Amen, brother.
I will now recognize the Chairman of the Subcommittee on
Research and Technology, the gentleman from Indiana, a medical
colleague, Dr. Bucshon, for his opening statement. Dr. Bucshon,
you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you, Chairman Broun, and thank you to
the witnesses for appearing here today.
Our hearing today on reducing the administrative workload
for federally funded research, brings forward an important
subject for all of us: reducing burdensome red tape caused by
an overly entangled bureaucratic web on the research community.
Last April, I did a university tour in my State of Indiana,
which is home to many premier research universities. At every
school I visited, the administrative burden on researchers was
of utmost concern.
In 2012, the National Research Council produced a report,
in response to a bipartisan bicameral request, highlighting ten
recommendations for the future of U.S. research universities.
One of the recommendations from that report was to reduce or
eliminate regulations that increase administrative costs,
impede research productivity, and deflect creative energy
without substantially improving the research environment.
In early 2013, I joined the former Chair of the Research
Subcommittee, my colleague Mo Brooks from Alabama, on a request
to the GAO to identify Federal requirements that create burden
for research universities. To avoid duplication, GAO waited to
move forward on our request due to ongoing work of the Office
of Management and Budget, the National Science Board and the
Federal Demonstration Partnership. I believe now that these
projects have wrapped up we can expect GAO to begin to identify
and address concerns regarding both the burden and potential
value of regulatory requirements.
Additionally, a bill I authored, H.R. 4186, the Frontiers
in Innovation, Research, Science and Technology Act, was
reported favorably from the full Committee on May 28th and
included a provision requiring the Director of the Office of
Science and Technology Policy to establish a working group
responsible for reviewing federal regulations surrounding
research and research universities and making recommendations
on ways to minimize the regulatory burden on universities.
I want to be sure we address the concern that 42 percent of
a researcher's time, according to the FDP, is spent on
administrative tasks which may take away from the conduct of
science. But we must also ensure that we maintain processes to
safeguard accountability, transparency and responsibility in
handling taxpayer resources.
I am confident that we are taking thoughtful and beneficial
steps toward addressing the issue of the regulatory burden. I
look forward to hearing from our witnesses today on their
experiences, concerns and suggestions to alleviate this problem
while preserving accountability.
I yield back.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Bucshon follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Research and Technology
Chairman Larry Bucshon
Thank you Chairman Broun. Our hearing today on Reducing the
Administrative Workload for Federally Funded Research brings forward an
important subject for all of us; reducing burdensome red tape caused by
an overly entangled bureaucratic web on the research community. Last
April, I did a university tour in my state of Indiana, which is home to
many premier research universities. At every school I visited, the
administrative burden on researchers was of the utmost concern.
In 2012, the National Research Council produced a report, in
response to a bipartisan bicameral request, highlighting ten
recommendations for the future of U.S. research universities. One of
the recommendations from that report was to ``reduce or eliminate
regulations that increase administrative costs, impede research
productivity, and deflect creative energy without substantially
improving the research environment.'' Early in 2013, I joined the
former Chair of the Research Subcommittee, my colleague Mo Brooks from
Alabama, on a request to the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to
identify federal requirements that create burden for research
universities.
To avoid duplication, GAO waited to move forward on our request due
to ongoing work of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB), the
National Science Board (NSB) and the Federal Demonstration Partnership
(FDP). I believe now that these projects have wrapped up we can expect
GAO to begin to identify and address concerns regarding both the burden
and potential value of regulatory requirements. Additionally, a bill I
authored, H.R. 4186, the Frontiers in Innovation, Research, Science and
Technology Act, was reported favorably from the Full Committee on May
28 and included a provision requiring the Director of the Office of
Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) to establish a working group
responsible for reviewing federal regulations surrounding research and
research universities and making recommendations on ways to minimize
the regulatory burden on universities.
I want to be sure we address the concern that 42 percent of a
researcher's time (according to the Federal Demonstration Partnership
(FDP)) is spent on administrative tasks which may take away from the
conduct of science. But we must also ensure that we maintain processes
to safeguard accountability, transparency and responsibility in
handling taxpayer resources.I am confident that we are taking
thoughtful and beneficial steps toward addressing the issue of
regulatory burden. I look forward to hearing from our witnesses today
on their experiences, concerns and suggestions to alleviate this
problem while preserving accountability.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Dr. Bucshon. I now recognize the
Ranking Member of the Research and Technology Committee, my
friend, Mr. Lipinski. You are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, Chairman Broun, and thank you,
Chairman Broun and Chairman Bucshon, for holding this hearing
on reducing the administrative workload for researchers. My
prior life as a university professor, researcher, I certainly
do have an appreciation for this.
There have been numerous reports, including some we will
hear about this morning, that have found that researchers face
significant administrative burdens, as all of my colleagues
have talked about. That is concerning because time spent on
administrative tasks from applying for grants, to submitting
progress reports, to complying with rules for human participant
requirements is time not spent on conducting research. This
could mean a delay in research progress and lengthening the
time for the next scientific breakthrough.
I want to stress that many administrative requirements are
very important. We must have a system that ensures that federal
resources are not being wasted and that human participants are
being protected. That being said, we need to find the right
balance that meets those goals and allows researchers to focus
on what they do best: advancing science. I am concerned that we
might not be striking the appropriate balance. If researchers
are spending over 40 percent of their time on administrative
tasks and not research, that is wasteful.
At a hearing in 2012, the Research Subcommittee heard
testimony from university witnesses expressing concern about
the growing toll of administrative burdens. After that hearing,
I sent a letter to OMB as the agency sought to reform federal
grants policies. The letter urged OMB to make changes to reduce
administrative burdens in some of the same areas addressed in
the Board's report. While the OMB has not adopted these
recommendations in full, I do feel that substantive progress
has been made and I hope that we can continue to address these
matters moving forward. I look forward to working with research
groups, the university community, science agencies, and other
interested parties to identify and act on additional
opportunities for reform.
Although this Committee cannot solve all the problems
associated with administrative burdens, we do have an important
role to play in working on and highlighting these issues. Both
the America COMPETES Reauthorization Act of 2014 and the FIRST
Act, as mentioned by Chairman Bucshon, include language that
would establish a working group under the National Science and
Technology Council to make recommendations on how to harmonize,
streamline, and eliminate duplicative federal regulations and
reporting requirements. I am interested to hear the witnesses'
thoughts on these legislative proposals.
I am also interested in hearing from the witnesses about
how other legislation such as the DATA Act, which has just been
enacted, and the GRANT Act, which has been proposed, would
affect administrative burdens for researchers.
Finally, I am interested in hearing about the progress that
is already being made to streamline and harmonize
administrative tasks. For example, I know that federal agencies
have been working on harmonizing the grant proposal process and
progress reporting requirements. Additionally, I understand
that agencies have started exploring ways for researchers to
submit only the information needed for the initial peer review
phase and then requiring administrative information from the
researchers only if the proposal is likely to be awarded. I
look forward to hearing from the witnesses about these efforts
and other proposals that could help reduce the administrative
burden for researchers.
In closing, federal agency and institutional requirements
have been put in place to protect human participants and animal
subjects in research, ensure integrity in the research
enterprise, and eliminate waste, fraud and abuse. There is no
question that we need to have these requirements in place but
there is room to make changes to the implementation of these
requirements. We must strike the right balance that both
protects our research enterprise and enables scientists to
spend more time on their important research.
I look forward to the witness testimony today and I thank
you for being here, and I yield back the balance of my time.
[The prepared statement of Mr. Lipinski follows:]
Prepared Statement of Subcommittee on Research & Technology
Ranking Minority Member Dan Lipinski
Thank you Chairman Broun and Chairman Bucshon for holding this
hearing on reducing the administrative workload for researchers.
There have been numerous reports, including some we will hear about
this morning, that have found that researchers face significant
administrative burdens. That is concerning because time spent on
administrative tasks--from applying for grants, to submitting progress
reports, to complying with rules for human participant requirements--is
time not spent on conducting research. This could mean a delay in
research progress and lengthening the time for the next scientific
breakthrough.
I want to stress that many administrative requirements are very
important. We must have a system that ensures that human participants
are being protected and that federal resources are being used wisely.
That being said, we need to find the right balance that meets those
goals and allows researchers to focus on what they do best--advancing
science. I am concerned that we might not be striking the appropriate
balance. If researchers are spending over 40 percent of their time on
administrative tasks and not research, that is not productive.
At a hearing in 2012, the Research subcommittee heard testimony
from university witnesses expressing concern about the growing toll of
administrative burdens. As a result, in May of last year I made several
recommendations along the lines of the issues raised in the Board's
report in a letter to OMB as the agency sought to reform federal grants
policies. While the OMB has not adopted these recommendations in full,
I do feel that substantive progress has been made and I hope that we
can continue to address these matters moving forward. I look forward to
working with research groups, the university community, science
agencies, and other interested parties to identify and act on
additional opportunities for reform.
Although this Committee cannot solve all the problems associated
with administrative burdens, we do have an important role to play in
working on and highlighting these issues. Both the America Competes
Reauthorization Act of 2014 and the FIRST Act include language that
would establish a working group under the National Science and
Technology Council to make recommendations on how to harmonize,
streamline, and eliminate duplicative federal regulations and reporting
requirements. I am interested to hear from the witnesses their thoughts
on these legislative proposal.
I am also interested in hearing from the witnesses about how other
legislation such as the DATA Act, which has just been enacted, and the
GRANT Act, which has been proposed, would affect administrative burdens
for researchers.
Finally, I am interested in hearing about the progress that is
already being made to streamline and harmonize administrative tasks.
For example, I know that federal agencies have been working on
harmonizing the grant proposal process and progress reporting
requirements. Additionally, I understand that agencies have started
exploring ways for researchers to submit only the information needed
for the initial peer review phase and then requiring administrative
information from the researchers only if the proposal is likely to be
awarded. I look forward to hearing from the witnesses about these
efforts and other proposals that could help reduce the administrative
burden for researchers. In closing, federal agency and institutional
requirements have been put in place to protect human participants and
animal subjects in research, ensure integrity in the research
enterprise, and eliminate waste, fraud, and abuse. There is no question
that we need to have these requirements in place. But there is room to
make changes to the implementation of these requirements. We must
strike the right balance that both protects our research enterprise and
enables scientists to spend more time on their important research.
I look forward to all of the witness testimony and the Q&A, and I
thank you all for being here today. I yield back the balance of my
time.
Chairman Broun. Dr. Lipinski, I appreciate your opening
statement.
If there are Members who wish to submit additional opening
statements, your statements will be added to the record at this
point.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Johnson follows:]
Prepared Statement of Full Committeee Ranking Member
Eddie Bernice Johnson
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I want to join you in thanking all the
witnesses for being here.
This morning we are discussing how to reduce the administrative
workload for researchers. As I am sure we will hear this morning,
numerous reviews by esteemed organizations have found that researchers
face significant administrative burdens at perhaps too high a cost to
benefit ratio. That is not good.
It is clear that we must ensure full accountability for all federal
funding. However, it is also clear that in order for our country to
remain a leader in research, we need our researchers conducting
research--not spending excessive amounts of time on paperwork.
I am interested in hearing from our witnesses about ideas for
streamlining and harmonizing some of these reporting requirements to
ensure that researchers are spending most of their time conducting
research.
I do find it interesting though that we are holding this hearing on
administrative burdens so soon after marking up the FIRST Act, which
the National Science Board and others have pointed out would lead to
significant increases in regulations and red tape.
Instead of having a genuine conversation about how we can reduce
the administrative burdens on our researchers, I am concerned that the
Majority wants to have it both ways. They want to pass a bill that
would add significant burdens one week and then lament all of the
increasing burdens on researchers the next week. That doesn't make any
sense.
I hope that we can move to an honest conversation about how this
Committee can help ensure that the research community has all the tools
they need to be successful. That includes fewer administrative burdens,
but also includes increased and predictable research funding. Otherwise
our researchers will continue to spend more and more time applying for
grants and checking boxes rather than conducting research.
If we were serious about promoting U.S. science and
competitiveness, this Committee would be investing in research and
reducing unnecessary red tape--not providing flat funding, rewriting
merit-review, and adding more bureaucratic burdens as the FIRST Act
does.
Thank you Mr. Chairman and I yield back the balance of my time.
Chairman Broun. At this time I would like to introduce our
panel of witnesses. Our first witness is Dr. Arthur
Bienenstock, Chairman of the Task Force on Administrative
Burden at the National Science Board. Dr. Bienenstock is also a
Professor Emeritus of Photon Science, Special Assistant to the
President for Federal Research Policy, and Director of the
Wallenberg Research Link at Stanford University.
Our second witness is Dr. Susan Wyatt Sedwick, Chair of the
Federal Demonstration Partnership and President of the FDP
Foundation. Dr. Sedwick is also an Associate Vice President for
Research and Director of the Office of Sponsored Projects at
the University of Texas at Austin. At least you didn't have to
drive from Austin. That is good.
Our third witness is Dr. Gina Lee-Glauser, the Vice
President of Research at Syracuse University's Office of
Research, and again, thank you so much for taking a tremendous
effort to drive all the way down here from Syracuse. We really
appreciate it.
Our final witness is the Hon. Allison Lerner, Inspector
General at the National Science Foundation's Office of
Inspector General. Let me just say that I especially appreciate
your presence here today, Ms. Lerner. I am aware that your
father is not well, and I want you to know that I will keep him
and you and your family in my prayers. So thank you.
As our witnesses should know, spoken testimony is limited
to five minutes each after which the Members of the Committee
have five minutes each to ask questions. Your written testimony
will be included in the record of the hearing.
It is the practice of this Subcommittee on Oversight to
receive testimony under oath. If you now would all please stand
and raise your right hand? I hope no one objects to taking an
oath. Do you solemnly swear to affirm to tell the whole truth
and nothing but the truth, so help you God? You may be seated.
Let the record reflect that all the witnesses participating
have taken the oath.
I now recognize Dr. Bienenstock for five minutes. Sir, you
are recognized. Let me remind all the witnesses that we are
going to have votes this morning, and so if you could, please
try to limit your comments to five minutes. Your written
testimony will be placed in the record. If you all could try to
watch the clock and make sure that if you can as much as
possible just adhere to the five minutes, I would appreciate
it.
Dr. Bienenstock.
TESTIMONY OF DR. ARTHUR BIENENSTOCK, CHAIRMAN,
TASK FORCE ON ADMINISTRATIVE BURDEN,
NATIONAL SCIENCE BOARD
Dr. Bienenstock. Chairmen Broun and Bucshon, Ranking
Members Maffei and Lipinski, and Members of the Subcommittees,
I appreciate the opportunity to speak with you today on
streamlining the red tape that is slowing the pace of
scientific research.
While this is a topic with which I have been engaged for
many years as a former Associate Director for Science at OSTP
and Vice Provost for Research at Stanford, I am here today
representing the National Science Board, which is an
independent adviser to Congress and the President. The Board's
Task Force on Administrative Burdens recently completed a
report on reducing investigators' administrative workload for
federally funded research. The Board created this task force
because our scientists are dealing with heavy administrative
workloads that interfere with the effectiveness of our nation's
research enterprise as indicated by successive federal
demonstration partnership surveys. This Committee heard this
concern voiced before at its hearing two years ago on the
National Academies' report on research universities and the
future of America.
I would like to thank this Committee for your sustained
attention to this issue including through Section 302 of the
FIRST Act that would require the creation of a high-level
interagency intersector committee to harmonize regulations
across agencies. This is recommended in our report as well.
The Board's report is available on our website, and I have
a number of copies available here today, so I will highlight
only a few key points in my oral remarks.
First, I want to emphasize that the NSB is absolutely
committed to the principle that research must be conducted with
integrity, adherence to standards, safety and full
accountability. Administrative compliance requirements are
needed to ensure this. However, it is equally important that we
achieve these goals without creating unnecessary burdens.
Second, while regulatory requirements add to the workload
of many stakeholders including NSF program officers and
university administrators, our task force focused on research
scientists and how we may be hindering their productivity. To
prepare our report, the NSB issued an open request for
information to the U.S. research community and held three
roundtables across the country. Over 3,000 researchers and
research administrators provided us with feedback. We also
consulted with the major organizations studying research
administration and burden issues including accrediting
organizations for human and animal subject protections. The
Board believes that by using stakeholder input to help identify
and prioritize concerns, agencies like the National Science
Foundation can provide an even better return on scarce taxpayer
dollars.
Let me now present our overarching findings and a few key
recommended actions. First, the Board believes that we need to
focus on the science. Proposals to the NSF include much
information that is not critical to judging the intellectual
merit and potential broader impacts of a proposal. Much
researcher and reviewer time could be saved if materials like
detailed budgets or postdoctoral mentoring plans were not
submitted until after a project has been through merit review
and deemed worthy of support.
Second, we need a continued government-wide push to
streamline regulations. For instance, the Federal Demonstration
Partnership's payroll certification pilot may help us to reduce
the burden associated with effort reporting without reducing
accountability. You may hear more on this from both the FDP and
Allison Lerner as she and her colleagues are reviewing this
pilot. The Board and many universities are looking forward to
their report and hope to learn from it.
Third, we need to continue to push for harmonization and
streamlining across the federal government. The OMB Uniform
Guidance and the new research performance progress reports are
steps in the right direction but more needs to be done. For
example, the research community perceives that federal audit
practices are not applied in a uniform and consistent way. The
Board will try to facilitate discussions between the audit and
university communities to address this. There will be ongoing
challenges of this sort. This is why we recommend the
establishment of a permanent high-level intersector interagency
committee.
Finally, the report recommends ways in which our
universities might increase their efficiency and effectiveness
as stewards of research and taxpayer dollars.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I look
forward to your questions.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Bienenstock follows:]
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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Dr. Bienenstock.
Our next witness is Dr. Sedwick. You are recognized for
five minutes, Dr. Sedwick. Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF DR. SUSAN WYATT SEDWICK,
CHAIR, FEDERAL DEMONSTRATION PARTNERSHIP;
PRESIDENT, FDP FOUNDATION
Dr. Sedwick. Thank you. Chairman Broun, Chairman Bucshon,
Ranking Members Lipinski and Maffei, and honorable Members of
the Oversight and Science and Technology Subcommittees, my name
is Susan Wyatt Sedwick. I am Chair of Phase V of the Federal
Demonstration Partnership and also serve as President of the
FDP Foundation. As you will note from my CV, I am an Associate
Vice President for Research and Director of the Office of
Sponsored Projects at the University of Texas at Austin. I
appreciate your invitation to appear before you today to
provide an overview of the FDP's involvement in efforts to
reduce the administrative burdens facing institutions and
principal investigators that receive federal funding to conduct
scientific research while not compromising proper stewardship.
The FDP began in 1986 as the Florida Demonstration Project,
and as of October 1 of this year, we will have grown to
membership of over 155 research institutions and 10 federal
agencies as members of Phase VI. The National Academy of
Science, Government, University Research Roundtable serves as
the neutral convenor of the FDP.
The FDP acknowledges the need for federal government to
ensure transparency, accountability and the efficient use of
federal research funding, but the 26 percent cap on the
reimbursement of administrative costs to universities has not
kept pace with the growing regulatory burden. Since the
imposition of the cap over 20 years ago, university research
has been subject to over 80 new or significantly revised
regulatory requirements. This does not include the extremely
burdensome requirements associated with the American Recovery
and Reinvestment Act funding support.
Almost 20 years ago, the FDP first surveyed federally
funded faculty researchers to evaluate the Florida
Demonstration Project's first demonstration of the expanded
authorities which allowed grantees to perform some actions such
as unilaterally extending final project periods for up to 12
months without prior federal agency approval. The results
indicated that those expanded authorities save significant
time, much of which could be redirected toward actively
conducting research.
In 2005 and in 2012, the FDP conducted faculty workload
surveys of principal investigators of federally funded research
to document the continuing impact of federal regulations and
requirements on the research process. The 2012 survey reached
almost twice as many investigators as the first survey,
accumulating responses from almost 13,500 principal
investigators with active research grants funded by the federal
government. The results from both surveys were astonishingly
similar. Researchers estimated that an average of 42 percent of
their research time associated with federally funded projects
is spent on meeting administrative requirements rather than
conducting active research. These findings mirror those of the
NSB survey and suggest that whatever progress may have been
made in reducing administrative burdens has been countered by
the introduction of new requirements.
The FDP's payroll certification demonstration is an example
of how the FDP works to provide less burdensome alternatives to
meeting regulatory requirements. With payroll certification,
the focus shifts to certification cycles that coincide with
project funding periods so principal investigators spend much
less time trying to translate the extrapolated percentages of
effort that are inherent with the disconnect between effort
reporting and accounting cycles and project funding periods.
The Office of Management and Budget has published its
Uniform Guidance, which combines the requirements of eight
longstanding OMB circulars, including those impacting
universities. The Council on Financial Assistance Reform must
be commended for their laudable work at combining requirements
for diverse grantees. However, one size fits all doesn't fit
anyone well.
There are some positive changes in the Uniform Guidance as
outlined in my written testimony. It remains unclear whether
the Uniform Guidance will offer any demonstrable relief but it
is clear that in some cases, certain requirements may
exacerbate the administrative burdens that are already breaking
the backs of universities and principal investigators. As an
example, new procurement requirements more applicable to the
government's acquisition of commodities may result in thousands
of transactions for research supplies being delayed on average
by two or more weeks at most institutions.
The FDP is perfectly positioned to provide a forum and test
bed for exploring possibilities that will benefit our nation's
research viability while shaping a more efficient and effective
research enterprise.
I would like to close by expressing my sincere appreciation
to the Committee and Congress for the continued support of
academic research and your proposal to consider a holistic
approach to reform. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Wyatt Sedwick follows:]
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Chairman Broun. Thank you. Dr. Sedwick.
Now, Dr. Lee-Glauser, you are recognized for five minutes.
Thank you.
TESTIMONY OF DR. GINA LEE-GLAUSER,
VICE PRESIDENT FOR RESEARCH,
SYRACUSE UNIVERSITY, OFFICE OF RESEARCH
Dr. Lee-Glauser. Thank you. Chairmen Broun and Bucshon,
Ranking Members Maffei and Lipinski, and distinguished Members
of the Subcommittees. Thank you for the invitation to testify
at this joint Subcommittee hearing. It is both timely and
important in light of the recently released reports on
administrative burden. I will discuss the role and impact that
federal research regulations have on Syracuse University and
our principal investigators and comment on select
recommendations of National Science Board's administrative
burdens report most relevant to SU.
My remarks will focus on three topics: the application
process, research subjects' protections and progress reporting.
Syracuse University is a member of the FDP and we have
participated in its administrative burden surveys. With and
through the FDP, we strive to put our limited resources to
their best use in support of research. Time perhaps is the most
precious resource of our faculty and staff and we all share in
the responsibility to identify and implement processes that
efficiently and effectively allow us to achieve our goals of
supporting research without compromising our accountability to
sponsors' requirements, the safety and well-being of research
participants or the welfare of our nation and the environment.
The question we are all grappling with is, how best to
achieve these ends. Complicating our collecting efforts is the
construction in federal support for research. As a consequence,
Syracuse University faculty members are submitting greater
numbers of proposals in order to just get one application
funded. The success rates of the research programs to which SU
faculty apply including the NSF and NIH are now in the single
digits. So, our faculty are spending considerable time
rewriting applications for the next cycle. Disturbingly, there
is likely no meaningful difference in quality or the potential
impact between the funded applications and the next tier of
non-funded applications. So in addition to the time lost for
our researchers, the pace of innovation and of knowledge
creation is delayed.
This discouraging state of competitive funding also is
having a chilling effect on our students. I am passionate about
supporting students from the groups underrepresented in the
academy and STEM disciplines as you do. I have directly
observed the stifling effect that the current funding
environment is having on these students' career plans. Every
day they see their advisors cope with the stress caused by an
uncertain funding environment and the challenges in
successfully achieving work-life balance and so most are
choosing to pursue non-academic careers. This is a tragedy for
research institutions that desperately need the diversity of
thought and experience that these exceptionally talented
individuals bring.
The NSB has recommended a number of ways to streamline the
proposal submission process. I support them and would suggest
another, that research granting agencies be required to use the
Grants.gov portal or system like FASTLANE. Public Law 106-107,
the Federal Financial Management Assistance Act of 1999,
created the foundation for Grants.gov. It expired in 2007,
perhaps enabling the proliferation of new grant application
systems.
A second burdensome area for SU faculty pertains to
adhering to regulations governing human and animal subjects.
These regulations importantly protect the rights of research
subjects and ensure that the risks and benefits are assessed
and managed appropriately. Human subjects' research at Syracuse
is predominantly social or behavioral in nature and so is
ordinarily of low risk. However, current federal regulations do
not yet provide a clear framework to more efficiently oversee
this lower-risk research. SU supports the Board's
recommendations to address this issue as well as similar
changes to animal use procedures.
Lastly, I know that submission of research progress reports
is often a pain point for my faculty. We look forward to the
efficiencies expected from the federal-wide implementation of
the Research Performance Progress Report. Like all new tools,
we know that there will be hiccups along the way, but the
willingness of our federal research sponsors to work in
collaboration with the FDP and the grantee community to further
enhance these reporting tools will go a long way to reducing
administrative burden on our faculty.
I would like to close with a few remarks about the recently
released OmniCircular. Syracuse, like other research
universities, is currently evaluating the impact of the
Circular's new provisions on our current policies and
procedures. We view this as an opportunity to identify and
implement reengineered processes that will allow us to more
efficiently and effectively use federal funds in support of
research. We are also closely monitoring agency implementation
of these regulations, with the hope that there will be very few
deviations from the provisions. I ask this Committee's help in
avoiding the introduction or enactment of new legislation that
would result in additional grant-related requirements on an
agency and the grantees.
I thank the Committee for taking a leadership role on this
important topic and I would be happy to answer any questions
you may have. Thank you.
[The prepared statement of Dr. Lee-Glauser follows:]
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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Dr. Lee-Glauser.
Now, Ms. Lerner, you are recognized for five minutes.
TESTIMONY OF THE HON. ALLISON LERNER,
INSPECTOR GENERAL,
NATIONAL SCIENCE FOUNDATION,
OFFICE OF INSPECTOR GENERAL
Ms. Lerner. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I appreciate the
chance to discuss the National Science Foundation Office of
Inspector General's perspective on the National Science Board
report, Reducing Investigators' Administrative Workload for
Federally Funded Research, our audits of the Federal
Demonstration Partnership pilot effort reporting systems and
the comments our office provided the Office of Management and
Budget during its creation of the Uniform Guidance on
Administrative Requirements, cost principles and audit
requirements for federal awards. Because both the NSB report
and the Uniform Guidance address the need for changes to the
effort reporting process, I will begin with that issue.
Every year, billions of dollars in federal funds are spent
for salary cost of individuals who work on federal grants.
Labor effort reports are essential documents for ensuring
accountability of grant funds as they represent the main
support for salaries and wages charged under those awards. Over
the years OIG auditors and investigators have repeatedly found
that not all of these charges are appropriate, and some are
even fraudulent. My office has had numerous investigations
involving university grantees that have failed to adequately
track time and effort. The cases that have been resolved to
date have resulted in criminal convictions, civil settlements
under the False Claims Act, and government-wide suspensions and
debarments. In many cases, those outcomes would not have been
possible without effort reports.
As part of the Federal Demonstration Project, labor effort
pilots of universities' payroll distribution systems are
underway at four universities. My office and the HHS Office of
Inspector General are auditing those pilots, and we hope to
complete our work by the end of the calendar year.
The NSB report on administrative burden identified effort
reporting as a top area of concern and recommended that OMB
identify a way for the piloted approaches to be used by
universities and accepted by OIGs. We appreciate the fact that
the report recognized the importance of having the pilots
audited, and I look forward to discussing the results of those
audits when they are complete.
The NSB report also made findings about administrative
burden resulting from financial management, noting several
audit folks' concerns. It is unclear to me what the respondents
meant when they indicated that auditors were exceeding
requirements. Most grant-related audit work conducted by OIG
would use OMB circulars or the Uniform Guidance as criteria and
be conducted in accordance with audit standards, which should
contribute to consistency in audit approaches. I would be happy
to facilitate a dialog between the grantee and the IG
communities to obtain greater insights on this issue.
The report also urged universities to consider requiring
receipts only for large purchases. While it is hard to see that
requiring receipts for purchases made using federal funds
imposes a substantial burden, the lack of such receipts would
have an immediate and detrimental impact on both an
institution's and an OIG's ability to detect and prosecute
fraudulent purchases. Requiring receipts only for large
purchases would not provide protection for the not infrequent
situations where individuals make many small fraudulent
purchases with grant funds that eventually add up to a great
deal of money.
Finally, to put the impact of audits in perspective, it is
important to recognize that most institutions are not audited
by OIGs on a regular basis. NSF funds approximately 2,000
universities, colleges and institutions annually. Due to size
and resource constraints, my office conducts fewer than 20
audits of such recipients each year.
With respect to the Uniform Guidance, our office led an IG
community working group that worked diligently to ensure that
the right balance between reducing burden and maintaining
accountability was struck. The OMB circulars include many tools
essential for combating fraud, waste and abuse. Using these
tools, OIGs have identified situations where recipients have
misused grant dollars and been able to pursue criminal, civil
and administrative actions to recover those funds. The feedback
we provided to OMB highlighted the importance of maintaining
and not diminishing or eliminating valuable tools such as
effort reports, cost accounting standards and disclosure
statements, certifications and Single Audits.
Unlike contracts, the federal government has little insight
into how grant funds are used by awardees. It is therefore
essential that tools like IG audits and Single Audits, which
are used to ensure accountability over federal funds, remain
robust and provide sufficient oversight.
While we recognize the need for a reasonable amount of
flexibility to limit administrative burden, acceptance of
public money brings with it a responsibility to uphold the
public trust. NSF awardees must never forget that they are
spending the public's money and that they will be held
accountable for using that money for its intended purpose.
Thank you for the opportunity to testify, and I would be
happy to answer any questions.
[The prepared statement of Ms. Lerner follows:]
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Chairman Broun. Thank you, Ms. Lerner. I thank you all for
your testimony, and I really appreciate the witnesses being
here today. Committee rules limit questioning to five minutes
per Member, and the Chair at this point will open the first
round of questions, so the Chair recognizes himself for five
minutes.
Dr. Bienenstock and Dr. Sedwick, as you know, the National
Science Board's recent report notes that there has been an
increase in administrative and compliance requirements
associated with federally funded research. However, the Federal
Demonstration Partnership's recent survey noted the principal
investigators spend 42 percent of their time on associated
administrative tasks, as Dr. Sedwick just told us, and that is
the same as it was in 2005. I wonder about that, but it is an
interesting piece of data. How can one claim an increase in
administrative and compliance requirements when that 42 percent
figure has remained static since 2005? Dr. Sedwick, why don't
we start with you?
Ms. Sedwick. Efforts of my colleagues and the FDP to
limit--after we had the first survey, we have really stepped up
our efforts to really focus on removing the administrative
burdens on our faculty, and an example of this, when the ARRA
reporting, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act
requirements for reporting came out, we worked very hard at
minimizing the input that we had to get from our faculty, and
we took that on our chins by developing systems, electronic
systems, and these were not minimal endeavors. And so I think
that we have worked very hard to minimize those increases in
our faculty, and quite frankly, we were surprised that the
number was exactly 42 percent but we were grateful that it had
not increased.
Chairman Broun. This is unacceptable. Forty-two percent to
me is a tremendous regulatory burden.
Dr. Bienenstock, what are your comments or answer?
Dr. Bienenstock. I am afraid my age shows here. I was a
working scientist in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and there
was a marked change in the administrative load after A-21, the
circular governing reimbursement of universities, was modified.
That did away with much administrative support that we had as
faculty. So when I say that it is increased, it is increased
relative to the situation that I faced as a scientist back in
the late 1980s and early 1990s before that modification of A-
21, and it is markedly different now.
Chairman Broun. For all witnesses, what do you all consider
to be an acceptable amount of time for researchers to spend on
associated administrative tasks? Let us start with Ms. Lerner
and we will go down.
Ms. Lerner. I don't think that I can give you a strict
percentage, not being a working scientist myself. Certainly, 42
percent does seem like a great amount of time but some of the
activities are obviously highly important. Ensuring the
protection of human subjects and informing funders and the
public about the progress of research are obviously very
important factors.
Chairman Broun. So the IG Office doesn't have any comment
about that?
Ms. Lerner. I would defer to people more involved in that
process than me.
Chairman Broun. Dr. Lee-Glauser?
Dr. Lee-Glauser. As an engineer and practiced in both
industry as well as NASA, now at the universities, I cannot
just tell you percentages but I think when we went into this
discipline, we wanted to make an impact and we wanted to make a
contribution in innovating, and I think even ten percent would
be too much, but at the same time, understanding what is
required and due diligence, and I think there are amicable
compromise. What is really exacerbating the situation is
funding levels. When you have to constantly looking out for
where your next funding to support all your postdocs and
graduate students and undergraduates, I think that is a part of
that exacerbation from our faculty members.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Dr. Sedwick?
Ms. Sedwick. Since I am representing the FDP, I don't want
to--this has not been discussed, a particular number, but I do
want to tell you that we know that it is not zero.
Chairman Broun. What is your personal feeling of the
percentage?
Ms. Sedwick. I think----
Chairman Broun. What is a good compromise?
Ms. Sedwick. A reasonable goal would be to cut that half. I
mean, if we could get down to 20 percent or so, I think that
would be reasonable.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Dr. Bienenstock?
Dr. Bienenstock. You know, the problem is that we are
dealing with regulations that serve a real function. I don't
have a number in mind. I think what we are going to have to do
is just chip away and chip away at this. I was really pleased
to hear Ms. Lerner propose that the audit community and the
university communities get together. We are just going to have
to chip away, and there is no magic bullet. We are just going
to have to eat away at little things.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Thank you, Dr. Bienenstock.
My time is expired. Mr. Maffei, you are recognized for five
minutes.
Mr. Maffei. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and again, I think
this is a tremendously important hearing to have, so thank you
again for that.
I would like to ask Dr. Bienenstock, so we have been
talking about trying to get this cut yet I fear that the FIRST
Act may add to the administrative burden. There are several
changes to the merit review process that I think would lead to
NSF having to develop new policies for peer reviewers and PIs.
Could you speak a little bit to the potential impact of some of
these changes in this bill should it become law? Would that add
to it?
Dr. Bienenstock. First of all, let me repeat my applauding
the call for OSTP to form a committee to harmonize regulations.
Harmonization is a key way to save researchers' administrative
time. For that reason, I was a little surprised by the
treatment of research misconduct. When I was at OSTP, it took
me three years to get all the agencies to agree on a common
definition of research misconduct and on common procedures for
dealing with an allegation of research misconduct.
So it was surprising to find in the same Act a section that
would completely deharmonize NSF from all the other agencies in
the treatment of allegations of research misconduct. It would
be particularly troublesome in a situation in which a paper was
funded by both the NSF and the NIH, for example, in which there
was an allegation of research misconduct. Because NSF was a
funder, the Inspector General would have a responsibility for
dealing with the allegation. Because NIH was a funder, the
university would have the responsibility or initial
responsibility with dealing with it. I think that section is
going to create real problems for the community.
Let me say once more that as Stanford's Vice Provost for
Research, I had to deal with allegations of misconduct. Some of
them were really subtle, and I was fortunate that I could
immediately call upon faculty members who had expertise in the
field because there was no way that I could figure out whether
it was misconduct or two researchers trying to use research
misconduct as a way of settling what should have been a
scholarly argument. I think you are going to add to the burden
of the IG and we are going to have chaos.
Mr. Maffei. Dr. Bienenstock, that is extremely helpful, and
I hope we can, you know--we passed it through Committee but I
hope we can before it becomes law take a look at that to try to
reduce as much as possible.
I do want to get back to this point that was made by a
couple of people. We are dealing with 42 percent. That is an
estimate. Who really knows what the answer is, but way, way too
high. I think we are all agreed on that. The issue, though, is
that we can reduce the regulatory burden significantly. Let us
assume we can. It is still--the number of times you apply for
the same grant proposal is going to increase the percentage of
time that scientists are spending on paperwork. So again, Dr.
Lee-Glauser, I will ask you because you talk about the
discouraging state of competitive funding, is this burden, even
if we are able to reduce it somewhat by just reducing the
paperwork requirements, but is this burden of constantly having
to reapply for funds, is that turning off young people to the
sciences? Are you seeing an effect on that?
Dr. Lee-Glauser. I think----
Chairman Broun. Turn on your microphone, please.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. Sorry. I think greater number of students
are thinking twice about going into academics, and I think what
I am really scared of is women and underrepresented minority
students. They see their faculty hustling left and right and
constantly working 24/7, and I hear from them, if I have to
work like that, I would rather do something else, and yet their
idea of coming into university and trying to get a Ph.D. was to
teach and they ended up working elsewhere. I have a number of
underrepresented, exceptional underrepresented minority
students going into industries left and right as well as
government labs.
Mr. Maffei. Okay. Thank you. My time is up. Thank you, Mr.
Chairman.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Maffei.
Now Dr. Bucshon, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you, Chairman Broun.
First of all, let me make a comment about competitive
funding. Obviously there needs to be competition, and when you
are funding, there is never going to be a time where 100
percent of people's proposals are going to be accepted for
funding. The question I have is where do we strike that balance
to make sure that we are funding basic science research from
the federal level at the appropriate level that is not impeding
the ability of the scientific community to actually make
progress, but also not fund projects that clearly, in my view,
are not in the national interest or worthy of the taxpayer
dollars. There is a very difficult balance there, and there is
disagreement in Congress of where that balance is. I would
think everyone would agree that it is probably a little--I
would agree, I will give my opinion--that it is probably a
little lower than it should be at this point and hasn't kept
up. The argument that always throwing more dollars into it
without continuing to look at that balance is something we need
to be careful about because as a steward of the taxpayer dollar
myself, we want to make sure that things are funded at the
appropriate level but not wasting money.
The other thing is, anyone that has ever filled out FAFSA
if you have a college student--anybody ever fill that out--
knows that there is reporting and then there is reporting. So
my question is to your point, Ms. Lerner and everyone else,
there is valid reasons to have reporting when we are looking at
getting federal dollars to fund projects. I think areas to look
at are making sure the reporting is reporting the appropriate
things that need to be reported, but leaving out stuff that
really has no impact on the grant proposal, and I am hearing
some of that is happening. Dr. Bienenstock, do you want to
comment on that first?
Dr. Bienenstock. Well, we definitely proposed that progress
reports, annual progress reports, be limited to the pertinent
scientific information and outreach information that is needed
to assess progress and that we strip away other aspects of it.
Similarly, in proposal writing, we propose that initially the
proposals be limited to those things needed to assess whether
it is appropriate to fund the research and only when the
decision has been made that the research should be funded do we
request the other information.
Mr. Bucshon. Dr. Lee-Glauser, do you want to comment on
that?
Dr. Lee-Glauser. Totally in agreement. I think we need to
use it just in time.
Mr. Bucshon. I think this is a potential area where my
personal view of hearing your testimony that without limiting
accountability that there is some significant progress that can
potentially be made to improve the situation. Ms. Lerner, do
you have any comments on that?
Ms. Lerner. I would certainly agree that progress can be
made.
Mr. Bucshon. The other question, how much administrative
workload faced by universities is due to federal agency
requirements versus institutional requirements? Dr. Lee-Glauser
maybe can comment on that first.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. Now you are putting me on the spot here,
and I think both. So part of--in light of the OmniCircular, we
are reviewing our institutional policies that we have and how
do we meet the requirements but how do we look into
reengineering rather than just comparing and how to meet the
requirement to meet the OmniCircular. We want to have process
improvement in mind so we are looking that way. Yes, we do have
internal policies and procedures that are very, very cognizant
about and we wanted to streamline those as well.
Mr. Bucshon. Dr. Sedwick?
Ms. Sedwick. The focus at our universities is on mitigating
risk but I think that in the same way that teaching to the test
is maybe not always the best way to educate, administering to
the audit, which is what happens often in these situations, is
not the best way to reduce the administrative burden, and I
think that we all live in fear of audit findings. And so it is
very true that sometimes we maybe overextend what we could do
and we are taking that same look at all of our institutions,
but again, whenever you have change, we are all wondering what
that is going to mean for future audits because it is an
uncertain future.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you. I yield back, Mr. Chairman.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Dr. Bucshon.
Now Dr. Lipinski. We have got a lot of doctors up here as
well as down there. We have two physicians and a Ph.D.
Mr. Lipinski. I was going to ask the----
Chairman Broun. Dr. Lipinski, you are recognized.
Mr. Lipinski. I was going to ask the Chairman not to refer
to me as doctor because the real doctors are over there, people
actually heal people, and so I usually don't like to use the
doctor for my Ph.D., especially if someone is looking for
emergency help. But I do appreciate whoever just turned the air
conditioning on. I do appreciate that help.
I saw, Dr. Bienenstock, you had your hand up there. You
wanted--why don't you continue? I think you had a comment on
that last question.
Dr. Bienenstock. I just wanted to say that universities do
fear audits and they fear--and are often more conservative than
federal government regulations would require, and that is why I
think Ms. Lerner's suggestion or pledge to seek a meeting
between the universities and the audit communities is so
important, and I think she deserves our praise for leading that
effort.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you, and I want to thank you for your
comments on some of the provisions of the FIRST Act, and I know
we had worked on the--you have been helpful with comments when
we did the last NSF reauthorization bill, and I appreciate your
work there and especially also the fact that I am a Stanford
graduate and much appreciate it.
I wanted to focus on the Omni Circular, which is scheduled
to be implemented at the end of this year. I would like to get
everyone's thoughts briefly on the Omni Circular. What are the
areas in which it helps reduce administrative burdens the most
and does it address the leading concerns of the scientific
community? What other issues remain unaddressed? So just sort
of your--a few comments, a couple comments from each of you on
the Omni Circular, where you think this helps and where more
might be done.
Ms. Sedwick. I will be happy to address that. I have been
very involved in looking at the Uniform Guidance and what the
wins are for universities and what the areas are that we are
most concerned about. The treatment of terminal pay as an
indirect cost, which indirect costs are capped at our
universities, will once again be another unfunded mandate. The
manner in which we are going to have to compete our procurement
actions that are $3,000 and above is going to be a significant
burden and change for our institutions, and these are two
examples of the types of changes in the Uniform Guidance that
are going to require revision of systems and processes and
policies that are outside of the purview of research
administration offices. So, you know, at each of our
institutions, we are working across our campus to try to come
up with implementation strategies for our own institutions, and
as we understand it, we are not even going to see the
implementation plans for the agencies besides the National
Science Foundation's perhaps until the date that the Uniform
Guidance goes into effect. So it is rather hard for us to plan
our own implementations when we don't know how those might be
different among agencies.
Mr. Lipinski. Dr. Bienenstock?
Dr. Bienenstock. There was one feature that I really like,
and that is the ability to charge administrative time that is
directly linked to the research to the contract itself. That
was the way we did things prior to about 1991, and it meant
that one could get administrative help locally. That is an
extremely important change.
Let me explain why we are so stressed out over effort
reporting, and it is almost a question of integrity. That is
suppose I have two grants and a new technique comes out. Well,
I have got to study that technique as a PI and spend a fair bit
of time deciding is it applicable to grant A, is it applicable
to grant B. Now, suppose it isn't applicable to either. On the
one hand, it would have been negligent of me not to study it
and see if it was applicable but then how do I charge that time
to the two grants or suppose it is applicable, how do I charge
the time that I spend teaching a graduate student about it. Is
that teaching or is that research? So you put a scientist in a
situation where he or she must affirm in detail how time is
spent where one cannot do that with integrity. It is for that
reason that we are so looking forward to the Inspector
General's report on the payroll certification with the hope
that--we expect that there will be difficulties but we hope
that the IGs and OMB and the university community will find a
way of making that method meet our needs and meet the needs of
the auditing community.
Mr. Lipinski. Thank you. I see I am out of time. Yield
back.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Dr. Lipinski. By the way, my
father-in-law was an agronomist, a tropical-soil specialist at
Purdue University, and he would argue with me all the time that
a Ph.D. was the original doctor.
So anyway, let us see. The next Member is Mr. Johnson. Mr.
Johnson, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Johnson. Thank you, Mr. Chairman, and thank you to the
panel for being with us today.
As I am sure many of you know, Ohio State University is a
major academic institution within my home state. Its continual
and significant contributions to the scientific community and
to the State of Ohio must be able to continue free of
ineffective and burdensome administrative regulations. OSU has
about 600 active subawards with multiple agencies at any one
time, the vast majority of which are with other academic
institutions to which the federal government also makes direct
awards. However, Ohio State, like many institutions of higher
education, believes that it is required to subject subawardees
to much higher levels of scrutiny than when federal agencies
monitor awardees that have been funded directly. Many believe
that these additional requirements on universities to monitor
each other are a total waste of effort and resources.
So for each of you, how can we improve this process of
subrecipient monitoring of grant subawards to alleviate this
burdensome administrative process that is placed on these
institutions? And I will let any of you answer that would like
to. Ms. Sedwick--Dr. Sedwick. Sorry.
Ms. Sedwick. That is okay. My daughter is a physician and
she calls me a faux doctor.
Mr. Johnson. She calls you Mom, too, right?
Ms. Sedwick. Yes, she does.
Mr. Johnson. There you go.
Ms. Sedwick. This is one of the areas of the Uniform
Guidance that we as research administrators were disappointed
because we felt like--that we could concentrate--if we got some
relief in subrecipient monitoring of other institutions that
are audited under the A-133 standards, that if we could spend
less time on our subrecipient monitoring for them, we could
concentrate our efforts and spend our resources really looking
at those subawardees who do pose a greater risk, foreign
subawardees, small startup companies or smaller institutions
that maybe don't have that kind of annual audit scrutiny. So
that is one of the things that we would have really liked to
have seen in the Uniform Guidance.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. Anybody else care to respond on that
one?
Okay. Well, you know, for Ms. Lerner, similar to the grant
proposal findings and recommendations included in the National
Science Board's recent report on reducing administrative
burden, OSU has stated that many principal investigators have
struggled with an increase in grant proposal resubmissions due
to the continual development of more complex and detailed
proposals, coupled with declining funding rates. So what steps
has the NSF already taken to address these concerns?
Ms. Lerner. I think that question might be better addressed
to someone from the foundation proper. As the auditor or the
independent body within the foundation, we don't have a role in
determining what projects are funded and what the process is,
so I can't speak directly to what the foundation has done
there.
Mr. Johnson. Okay. All right. Yes. Go right ahead.
Dr. Bienenstock. A section of the National Science
Foundation is piloting a program of pre-proposals, and in that
way you can weed out about 50 percent and even more of the
proposals that are not likely to get funding. These pre-
proposals are very short. So that reduces both the amount of
time that the proposers spend on writing the proposals and also
the amount of time that the reviewers spend.
In response to that question I have to say that this
Committee could do us a great deal of good if it would modify
the authorization bill in a way--presently, the authorization
of the America COMPETES Act requires that postdoc mentoring
plans be included in the original proposal. We value very
highly postdoc mentoring programs but we believe that that
could be put off until we know that a proposal is likely to be
funded, and we need legislation altered in order to achieve
that.
Mr. Johnson. Well, thanks for being very clear on that. I
appreciate it.
Mr. Chairman, I yield back.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Mr. Johnson.
Now, Ms. Kelly, you are recognized for five minutes.
Ms. Kelly. Thank you, Mr. Chair. Good morning.
In the NSB report, the FDP survey, and other recent
reports, time and effort reporting is identified as a leading
concern for researchers in terms of time spent on paperwork
while being a poor metric for the conduct of science. Can you
elaborate on the nature of the concerns and what efforts are
underway to try to simplify or mitigate the burden of this
requirement? And anyone who wants to answer.
Ms. Sedwick. Okay. Imagine if you will that you are a
principal investigator in your office, your lab, and you are
funded from different funding streams. You have your
institutional duties and then you have projects that don't have
the same project period. And so in effort reporting once or
twice a year we ask the faculty to look at those percentages
that were individuals on their awards, their postdocs, graduate
students related to your staff, how much time they spent. Did
they actually spend the time that they were supposed to spend
on those projects? Which that is all fine and good but it is
very confusing because it doesn't have a 1:1 correlation.
Our payroll certification project has the certification for
the specific project, so you are looking at that on an
annualized basis and it is just much easier for the faculty to
look at it on a project-by-project basis versus in the whole.
Ms. Kelly. Anyone else?
Dr. Lee-Glauser. One of the things that--Art was pointing
it out earlier, when you are doing the research, it really is
very hard to compartmentalize whether it is a project A or
project B or project C, especially very active faculty members
may have multiple grants and contracts and it is not all from
the federal government; it could be from the corporations as
well. So it is very hard to--as Art pointed out, if you are
finding something new, are we supposed to stop? As a
researcher, curiosity is the best effort to go through in that
process and then trying to find it out, where do I docket that
time, whether it is with a graduate student or undergraduate or
postdoc. So these are some of the inherent challenges in a
research institution.
Ms. Lerner. And as the auditor on the panel, I am not going
to tell anyone that the current effort reporting system is
perfect. It is not. And I think that things could be made
better. But the thing to bear in mind is the amount of money
that goes towards salaries each and every year. We looked at
two years, fiscal years 2012 and 2013. NSF put about $11
billion into research funding; $4 billion of that approximately
went to salaries. That is about 36 percent of the research
funding in a year. So there needs to be some way of ensuring
that that money is spent appropriately.
Ms. Kelly. So you are saying it is vital for
accountability----
Ms. Lerner. Yes.
Ms. Kelly. --and you have examples of how things----
Ms. Lerner. Yes, absolutely.
Ms. Kelly. --grant funds have been misused. Is there a
middle ground?
Ms. Lerner. I think, you know, that that is the thing for
us to discuss right now, and that is why our community has
stepped up and offered to come in and audit these pilots
because if there is a better way of doing things, we want to
embrace that.
Ms. Kelly. Okay. Thank you very much.
I yield back.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Ms. Kelly.
And, Mr. Collins, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Collins. Well, thank you, Mr. Chairman.
I want to thank the witnesses. I am new to this Committee
and I found this very interesting. By the way, I have
participated in some CDC grants so I know something about this,
although not necessarily as you are talking about, the
professors.
Ms. Lerner, I am hearing a willingness of the IG to work
with the universities, call it continuous improvement, to have
that conversation?
Ms. Lerner. Certainly we have to maintain auditor
independence, but we should obviously be involved in a dialogue
about accountability and about how to improve things. So I
think there is a way of being involved in that conversation
while maintaining independence.
Mr. Collins. Yeah. I mean calling that balance, the IG is
open to----
Ms. Lerner. Yeah.
Mr. Collins. --suggestions coming in, streamlining ways to
make sure your auditors know taxpayer dollars are being----
Ms. Lerner. Exactly.
Mr. Collins. --protected and lessening the burden to the
extent but you need to make sure taxpayer dollars are being
properly spent.
Ms. Lerner. We do. And what I hate to see happen sometimes
is conversations get very far along without the audit community
being included and then people think solutions have been
reached and we have to come in and rain on the parade. So it is
better to be involved in the conversation early on.
Mr. Collins. Now, what I am hearing, the 26 percent
overhead rate----
Ms. Lerner. Twenty-six percent?
Mr. Collins. Did I hear that from Dr. Sedwick that----
Ms. Lerner. That was her recommendation as a kind of middle
ground.
Ms. Sedwick. The 26 percent is a cap that was imposed back
in the 1990s on the ability for universities to be reimbursed
for their administrative costs, and almost all research
universities that belong to the FDP far exceed that cap.
Mr. Collins. So does that just go in as a plug number when
they are doing it and then you just say times 1.26 or----
Ms. Sedwick. The 26 percent is the administrative portion
of our facilities and administrative costs and it is capped and
then we negotiate our negotiated rate, which is then applied.
Mr. Collins. Right. So that is really not audited so much.
That is just an automatic slipped-in number? Yeah, okay.
But if it was--what you're, Dr. Sedwick, suggesting perhaps
that didn't cover everything. For every dollar that we
increase, that would be, to refer to Dr. Lee-Glauser, a dollar
then not spent somewhere else.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. That is right.
Mr. Collins. You can't have it both ways. It is called
balance. I look at it that it is probably not a bad balance.
Ms. Sedwick. Well, in my administrative--I mean my written
testimony, I talk about the fact that the administrative
burdens on our faculty are exacerbated by the fact that we are
trying to, in our offices, absorb as much of the administrative
burden as we can but every time we have to take on a new
regulation, then those are dollars that we have to spend on the
administrative requirements versus just helping our faculty
with their administrative tasks.
Mr. Collins. No. No, understood. Dr. Lee-Glauser, you have
many principal investigators. I have to assume they don't all
have the same hit rate when they are applying. They don't have
the same amount of time. Have you gone to really try to deep-
dive why is this investigator hitting 40 percent and this one
three percent and why does--in other words, are you looking for
efficiencies and suggestions because any improvements you can
make you are helping yourself.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. So it differs significantly by the agency
to agencies. So if you are--if some of our faculty are
targeting defense agency ONR, OSR, or ARO, the importance of
having a relationship with the program director is that
important. And I think it is very aligned with almost like a
proposal type of action. Many of our programs are done with
white papers----
Dr. Lee-Glauser. --which is one to five pages and you have
a go, no-go. Once you have ``go,'' success rate is very high.
So the faculty members who are doing more defense-related
projects, their success rate is much higher typically than
faculty members who are seeking funding from the National
Science Foundation, as well as the National Institutes of
Health.
Mr. Collins. So you do--I mean it would make sense to try
to help your investigators do better. The better their hit
rate, the less--and, you know----
Dr. Lee-Glauser. Exactly.
Mr. Collins. It is common sense but----
Dr. Lee-Glauser. We would like to have our----
Mr. Collins. Help yourself again, yeah.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. Yes. We would like to have our faculty
writing one proposal and getting that one funded----
Mr. Collins. Yeah.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. --if it is at all possible. Yes.
Mr. Collins. I think we all would.
Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Mr. Bucshon. Thank you. We are going to switch out here
again real quickly.
Chairman Broun. We are having a little discussion here
about doing a second round. We have a lot of questions. I know
other Members do. I have also. We also have votes on the Floor,
and we have conflicting idea about when we are going to have
votes. I think we are going to go ahead and start a second
round of questioning if you all don't mind. Also, we are going
to, when we get through with this, present any other questions
to you all for the record so we call them QFRs. So, if you all
don't mind, be anticipating questions from the Members of both
Subcommittees for further questioning.
So Ms. Lerner, in the Council of Inspectors General for
Integrity and Efficiency's response to the Office of Management
and Budget's Uniform Guidance or Omni-Circular, it states that
it is important to strike the appropriate balance between
reducing burden and maintaining proper accountability. Can you
help illustrate what an appropriate balance looks like? For
example, what do Inspectors General need to see at a minimum in
order to be able to ensure accountability and transparency with
federal grants without impinging upon a researcher's extremely
valuable time to do their research?
Ms. Lerner. Thank you. Both my written and my spoken
testimony mention several tools that are extremely important to
IGs. We have talked a lot about effort reporting. Another area
that we haven't spent as much time to focus on that I think
does and has served to fight back some of the burden on
researchers, is Single Audits. Single Audits were put in place
back in the '80s and a Single Audit is a high level audit
looking at internal controls and financial management within a
recipient.
Prior to the creation of the Single Audit, an entity funded
by multiple federal agencies, all of whom would have a need to
audit, and they can all go in at the same time. If you receive
funding from five different agencies, you could have five
different sets of auditors walking in simultaneously or after
each other looking at the same things. So what the Single Audit
did was say we are going to do this once, you know, at this
very high level and spare some burden there. And so maintaining
the integrity of the Single Audit process is very important to
IGs and to institutions and other folks who rely on the
information there, so maintaining a robust Single Audit
process, having strong cost principles that clearly delineate
what are allowable costs so that there is some clarity both for
auditors and for folks who are incurring cost. All of those are
important things to IGs.
Chairman Broun. Very good. Thank you, Ms. Lerner.
Dr. Bienenstock, the Board has suggested that agencies and
institutions consider requiring receipts and justifications
only for larger purchases. Conversely, the NSF OIG makes a
compelling case requiring investigators to obtain and retain
receipts for all purchases. Can you please elaborate on your
justifications for the Board's suggestion, including at what
amount you would require receipts?
Dr. Bienenstock. As I understand it, federal regulations
allow one to not submit a receipt for expenditures under $75.
And yet many institutions are required--and federal regulations
allow, for instance, a researcher who is traveling to use a per
diem reimbursement rather than providing receipts for each
little meal and things of that sort. Yet many States require
receipts for every little transaction and don't allow the use
of the per diem rules that so eases things with the federal
government. So we were looking primarily at the States there
that don't allow per diem. That is my memory in that
recommendation.
Chairman Broun. Okay. What level, though, of receipts would
you require? Just a number----
Dr. Bienenstock. I think the $75 is----
Chairman Broun. Is appropriate?
Dr. Bienenstock. Yes.
Chairman Broun. Okay. Ms. Lerner, can you please provide us
with the IG community's perspective on this issue?
Ms. Lerner. I think I was fairly clear in my written
testimony speaking for myself and I think probably reflecting
the views of my community, we rely on receipts and just because
an expense is small doesn't mean that there can't be many small
fraudulent expenses.
Chairman Broun. Um-hum.
Ms. Lerner. So ensuring that if a threshold was set at
higher than 75 percent, we would have some challenges. As I
noted in my written remarks, we had one very creative person
who made 3,800 small purchases that added up to over $300,000
of fraudulent purchases. So, we do need to have receipts to
help us make cases like that.
Chairman Broun. That is a lot of pizza and hamburgers.
Ms. Lerner. It was. And she really liked to tailgate for a
university other than the university that she worked at. That
did not go over well.
Chairman Broun. Very good. My time is expired.
Mr. Maffei, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Maffei. Thank you very much, Mr. Chairman.
Dr. Sedwick, I was struck by the fact that both the 2005
and 2012 FDP faculty workload surveys found that principal
investigators reported in both surveys spending an average of
less than 60 percent of their time on active research, so the
scientists spending less than 60 percent of their time on
science. Can you comment on what policies if any--because I
know you said there were things put in place to try to reduce
the workload but then there were things that added to it--was
it mostly the Recovery Act--of why we didn't get improvements
in the administrative workload between those two times?
Ms. Sedwick. The results were quite often in the human--the
research compliance areas for those researchers that utilized
animals or those researchers that used human subjects--
participants. Those were very high burdens for them. And so
that is what we looked at is not only was it prevalent across
all researchers but what were the big pressure points for
researchers in general. And so if you had human subject
participants or if you had animal use and care to deal with,
those were very high, and a lot of that is regulatory-driven.
And then just the financial management, the effort reporting
remains to be high across all sectors, because that touches all
faculty.
Mr. Maffei. Thanks. I think that is very helpful.
Somebody made the comparison between applying for the
research grants and, you know, getting through that
administrative burden and sort of teaching to the test. And
that part of the challenge is that researchers are designing
their applications more to sort of teach to the way that is
done. And I don't know, Ms. Lerner, whether you were able to
comment on that at all but I am curious as to whether you think
that is true and how can that be reduced?
Ms. Lerner. I think the expression was that they were
trying to teach to the audit with the idea of avoiding any
possibility of a negative audit finding. And I know we are
scary people and I say that in jest, but I recognize that an
audit to question costs and tries to take money back from an
institution is a frightening thing to have to deal with. What I
would say is, really it is not the audit. We audit to criteria
and the criteria come out of first, previously, the OMB
circulars and now the Uniform Guidance. And so if we can have a
better understanding and set policies and procedures that are
harmonized with the criteria that the federal government has,
then there shouldn't be a problem with the audit down the road.
And I think what I have heard some of my colleagues here
referring to is that sometimes standards are raised beyond what
the federal standards require in an excess of caution. And if
that can be avoided, that might be an area of improvement.
Mr. Maffei. Dr. Sedwick, you seem to----
Ms. Sedwick. Well, I am the one that said we administer to
the audit, and by that I mean--keep in mind that the Inspectors
General for the federal agencies are not the only auditors that
are auditing us.
Ms. Sedwick. Ms. Lerner has alluded to our A-133 Single
Audits and those are conducted by our state--run by our state
audit offices for those of us that are state institutions. And
so it is not just Inspectors General that we are, you know,
concerned about.
I will give you an example. In the Uniform Guidance there
is much more burdensome subrecipient monitoring requirements,
and we already feel that at our institution and I think some of
my colleagues who we have--how you make subawards to feel like
that we are pretty risk-averse. Well, our state auditors have
already told us they want to talk to us about, you know,
increasing what we do at our state institutions, and that is
really concerning for me and I think that that is what we are
all thinking is coming out of the Uniform Guidance is we don't
know where not just the Inspectors General but our state
auditors are going to take it
Mr. Maffei. That is really helpful.
I am curious, and Dr. Lee-Glauser, I will ask if you have a
thought on this, but I am curious as to whether you think that
these requirements put any bias in terms of the kinds of
universities, the sort of home universities or colleges that--
for instance, you mentioned state. Are state institutions
having to deal with more of this and therefore biased against?
Do the sort of the huge traditional names, are they helped? Or
the smaller colleges, if you are from there, they don't have
the resources to support scientists as much. Do you detect any
of that?
Dr. Lee-Glauser. I think we--Syracuse University is a
private institution. We are not a state institution but we have
the same burden.
Mr. Maffei. Right.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. We receive funding from the State as well
as the federal and different agencies, so we have the same
burden.
Mr. Maffei. I know my time is up but, Ms. Lerner, do you
ever detect any sort of--are you concerned at all about
different--you know, the nature of the institution?
Ms. Lerner. You know, over the years the IG community has
found problems at--you know, at every size institution that you
can imagine from the biggest names to the smallest. So there is
no guarantee that size prevents problems. What I would say is
in larger research institutions like the University of Texas,
my alma mater and a lovely place, you do have places--people
like Dr. Sedwick who are able to provide support and ensure an
environment where you are more likely to have controls. That
may be difficult to replicate at smaller institutions and
certainly when you have small businesses that are receiving
funding.
Mr. Maffei. Thank you. I thank the Chairman for his
obliging me. I think this is all very, very valuable.
Chairman Broun. Certainly. Gladly. No problem. You know I
have always tried to give lots of leeway.
Dr. Bucshon, you are recognized for five minutes.
Mr. Bucshon. Yes. Thank you, Mr. Chairman. I am going to go
a little different direction. I think Mr.--Dr. Bienenstock,
excuse me, mentioned an intriguing thought that sometimes
misconduct allegations are done because there is an academic
argument for competitive purposes and we all know that the
academic environment is really hypercompetitive. I want to see
what people's insight is what happens when those things happen
within your own university--this may go to the university
folks. What are the repercussions of that when that is found to
be the case where it is not--it is an academic argument in the
competitive environment people have made accusations.
And then, Ms. Lerner, maybe you can address what
implications that may have on the future ability of the person
making the accusation that is found to be false on their
further ability to ever get federal funding again? Because in
my mind if they do that, I would not want to give them another
taxpayer dollar ever. Or--we have discussed this at the
Committee--or have a time frame where you would maybe--you
know, there would be some forgiveness there.
Do you want to follow up on that, Dr. Bienenstock? I mean
how significant do we think that a lot of this stuff we are
spending time on within the university is actually related to
academic competition and not related to actual fraudulent
behavior by researchers?
Dr. Bienenstock. Let me say that approximately half of the
cases that I had to deal with as Vice Provost were of that
nature. Okay.
On the other hand, I have to say that it was pretty subtle.
That is you know the processes. First, you determine is the
allegation one that should be dealt with under the definition
of falsification, fabrication, or plagiarism? Then you do an
inquiry. And in both of those cases the inquiry said we better
do an investigation. So it is subtle. And then in the end when
we got the senior faculty together to really look at it
carefully, it was decided there isn't research misconduct here.
It really is an argument that should be settled in the
literature.
Now----
Mr. Bucshon. So is there a reporting requirement? Say an
institution finds that within their own institutional
investigation. Is there a requirement to inform the federal
government of who made the allegation in the first place and
what the outcome was?
Dr. Bienenstock. No. I believe in circumstances like this
we don't report. And remember, the person who made the
allegation had a real reason for doing it and we wouldn't----
Mr. Bucshon. Well, maybe they didn't.
Dr. Bienenstock. --go beyond the inquiry stage if we didn't
think there was enough justification to go into the
investigation. So it is not as if you really want to stop these
things because in some cases there is real misconduct, and you
are supposed by the rules to keep these things confidential
unless there is a real finding of research misconduct.
Mr. Bucshon. Okay. Ms. Lerner, you have a comment on that?
Ms. Lerner. I would just say if NSF funding is involved, we
are supposed to be informed even at the inquiry stage because
the initial inquiry and investigation is conducted by the
institution, and if there is a determination that no
investigation is warranted, we are informed of that. What the
institution is doing is looking at the interest of the
institution and we look at research misconduct and allegations
from the perspective of the funding agency. And sometimes we
will look at the inquiry and/or investigation and decide that
additional work is necessary and we do go on and do that. It is
not often. Usually, we can rely on the determinations that are
made by the institutions. But in instances--and we have had
some prominent ones where we don't think that sufficient work
has been done, we go in and do more and then we make
recommendations to the director intended to protect the federal
funds.
Mr. Bucshon. I want to give both the doctors from the
universities--there was some surprise about your initial part
of your statement. So, Dr. Lee-Glauser, first can you comment
on that?
Dr. Lee-Glauser. Yes.
Mr. Bucshon. And then with your indulgence, Mr. Chairman,
Dr. Sedwick.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. So it is my understanding that during the
inquiry stage within the institution we do not have to report
to NSF. When it goes into the investigation--so we are very
careful----
Ms. Sedwick. Yeah, that is----
Dr. Lee-Glauser. --as to how we are awarding what we are
doing.
Ms. Sedwick. I agree.
Dr. Lee-Glauser. Yes.
Ms. Sedwick. That is--we are required to report at the--
when we start the investigation stage and then the results of
our investigation.
Ms. Lerner. And----
Mr. Bucshon. Your mike is not on, Dr.--Ms. Lerner.
Ms. Lerner. What is that?
Mr. Bucshon. Your mike is not on.
Ms. Lerner. But sometimes allegations come to us and we
send them to the institution for inquiry, so that is what I am
speaking of. In those situations we are already aware. In other
instances we are not aware of them until they get to the
inquiry stage.
Mr. Bucshon. Okay. Because this issue actually seems very
important to me because, like I said, there is a discussion on
when you fraudulently use taxpayer dollars or you accuse
someone of fraudulently using taxpayer dollars and they
weren't, what the repercussions of that are.
And so thank you, Mr. Chairman. I yield back.
Chairman Broun. Thank you, Dr. Bucshon.
As a practicing physician, I have seen the burden that is
placed upon medical practitioners by the federal government and
it has markedly driven up the cost of the practice of medicine.
This drives up the cost of insurance, it drives up the cost for
all of us, society as a whole, because of the heavy burden of
the federal government that comes from Centers for Medicare and
Medicaid Services. So this regulatory burden on all scientists,
whether it is a researcher in a university or whether it is a
private researcher or whether it is even medical providers that
are working. The cost in time, energy, which of course are
extremely valuable, as well as the financial cost are huge. And
I appreciate you all being here today to help elucidate some of
the issues that you all face.
By the way, for those of you all that are not from the
South, you all is singular for all you all, which is the plural
for us, or you all could be plural itself so it is singular and
plural. So, but greatly appreciate you all being here today.
And, it is great testimony from each of you. I appreciate--
certainly all of you all have made some personal sacrifice in
your valuable time to come here and give us your testimony, and
personally, I greatly appreciate it.
And then others have even made some other types of
sacrifices, driving a long way from Syracuse, New York, down
here, and then, Ms. Lerner, I am sorry for your father's health
problems and I greatly appreciate your personal sacrifice to
come. I know that there was some question whether you could
attend or not because of that and I will keep you and your
family and your dad in my prayers.
But all of the Committee Members may have--or some of us
may have further questions for each of you all, and I would
appreciate a very rapid response to that. Members are reminded
that the record will remain open for two weeks for additional
comments or for those written questions from Members, and then
if you all would please get your responses back as
expeditiously as possible so that we can go ahead and close
this record.
And if you have any suggestions of how we can get this
burden off of our scientific community so that we can do
science instead of fulfill the regulatory burden that the
federal government has placed upon you all, and also give Ms.
Lerner and her compatriots in IG offices across this country
the resources that they need to do their job. We all have to be
held responsible and accountable and so that is what Ms. Lerner
and her office is all about. So, if you all could let us know.
Ms. Lerner, if you could help us, too, I would appreciate that.
So I thank all of you all for your valuable testimony. I
thank Members for your great questions and this hearing is now
adjourned.
[Whereupon, at 10:41 a.m., the Subcommittees were
adjourned.]
Appendix I
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Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Answers to Post-Hearing Questions
Responses by Dr. Arthur Bienenstock
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]
Responses by Dr. Susan Wyatt Sedwick
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9408.062
Responses by Dr. Gina Lee-Glauser
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED] T9408.075
Responses by The Honorable Allison Lerner
[GRAPHIC] [TIFF OMITTED]