The U.S. scientific enterprise has produced significant advances in technologies and medicines that have underpinned the nation’s health, security, safety, and prosperity. However, there is increasing concern that science and technology progress is being hampered by policies and regulations that are excessive, uncoordinated, duplicative, or inconsistent. While regulations are necessary to ensure research is conducted with the highest ethical standards and in the public interest, the current size and complexity of the regulatory environment is hindering research productivity and increasing costs on research institutions without proportionate benefit.
This webinar centers on the release of a new National Academies’ consensus study from the committee on Improving the Regulatory Efficiency and Reducing Administrative Workload to Strengthen Competitiveness and Productivity of U.S. Research that presents options for federal actions to improve regulatory efficiency affecting researchers and their institutions. The options presented aim to improve regulatory administrative processes and modify or eliminate policies and regulations that have outlived their purpose while maintaining necessary and appropriate integrity, accountability, and oversight.
The committee has attempted to describe the impacts of administrative workload and current regulations on research productivity; analyze federal research regulations in light of the 2016 National Academies report Optimizing the Nation’s Investment in Academic Research to determine whether the report’s recommendations for regulatory change have been implemented; and examine other recommendations from reports developed by such groups as the Association of American Universities (AAU), Association of Public and Land-grant Universities (APLU), and Council on Government Relations (COGR), and others on the impacts of federal regulations on researcher and institutional workload.