Subcommittees Discuss Administrative Burdens on Researchers
(Washington, DC) – Today, the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology’s Subcommittees on Research and Technology and Oversight held a hearing to examine the recent report of National Science Board’s (NSB) Task Force on Administrative Burden’s. The concerns raised in the report were at the forefront of the discussion.
Testifying before the Committee was Dr. Arthur Bienenstock, Chairman of the Task Force on Administrative Burden at the National Science Board; Dr. Susan Wyatt Sedwick, Chair of the Federal Demonstration Partnership (FDP) and President of the FDP Foundation; Dr. Gina Lee-Glauser, Vice President for Research at Syracuse University; and The Honorable Allison Lerner, Inspector General of the National Science Foundation (NSF).
Ranking Member Dan Maffei (D-NY) of the Subcommittee on Oversight said in his prepared statement, “I think there is no disagreement across the aisle [on paring back bureaucratic burdens]. 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 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.” In response to Mr. Maffei’s questions to the witnesses, the Members heard testimony that provisions of the FIRST Act in its current form could hurt the scientific community.
Mr. Maffei noted that, “So much time and energy of a researcher simply comes 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. Unfortunately, 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, I fear that we consign many researchers to hours of unfunded effort that will, four out of five times result only in failure.”
Members discussed several different types of administrative burdens on researchers – from grant proposals to time and effort reporting. Additionally, Members discussed whether ongoing efforts like the new Office of Management Budget (OMB) Omni-Circular and the pilot efforts led by FDP would help reduce administrative burdens. Members and the witnesses stressed the need to balance reducing administrative burdens with the need to ensure scientific integrity.
Ranking Member Dan Lipinski (D-IL) of the Subcommittee on Research and Technology said in his opening statement, “It is concerning that the 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…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.”
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