Cutting that Red Tape
A report from the US National Science Board (NSB) has denounced excessive bureaucracy faced by researchers and urges a “focus on the science”
“Regulation and oversight of research are needed to ensure accountability, transparency and safety,” said Arthur Bienenstock, chair of the NSB Task Force on Administrative Burdens. “But excessive and ineffective requirements take scientists away from the bench unnecessarily and divert taxpayer dollars from research to superfluous grant administration.”
The NSB is the policymaking body of the National Science Foundation (NSF), which is the independent US federal agency that supports fundamental research and education across all fields of science and engineering.
In December 2012, the NSB task force issued a request for information to identify the federal agency and institutional requirements that contribute most to the administrative workload of principal investigators. The response from over 3,100 individuals indicated that the main bureaucratic offenders were financial management, the grant proposal process, progress (and other) reports; human subjects research and institutional review boards, and research involving animals and institutional animal care and use committees.
Armed with these data, the task force issued a report, “Reducing Investigators’ Administrative Workload for Federally Funded Research” (1). Running to 98 pages, the report included three key recommendations:
- to limit proposal requirements to those that are essential for evaluating merit
- to ensure that reporting focuses on outcomes
- to automate payroll certification for effort reporting.
Addressing other bugbears, the NSB also proposed an evaluation of animal research, conflict of interest, and safety/security requirements, and indicated that universities should review their internal processes to speed up protocol approval.
The report acknowledges that many of the issues raised are not new, but notes that a clear inability to address them has continued to waste precious research dollars at a time when funding is already scarce. Its main objective is to allow researchers to “refocus their efforts on scientific discovery and translation.”
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Rich Whitworth completed his studies in medical biochemistry at the University of Leicester, UK, in 1998. To cut a long story short, he escaped to Tokyo to spend five years working for the largest English language publisher in Japan. "Carving out a career in the megalopolis that is Tokyo changed my outlook forever. When seeing life through such a kaleidoscopic lens, it's hard not to get truly caught up in the moment." On returning to the UK, after a few false starts with grey, corporate publishers, Rich was snapped up by Texere Publishing, where he spearheaded the editorial development of The Analytical Scientist. "I feel honored to be part of the close-knit team that forged The Analytical Scientist – we've created a very fresh and forward-thinking publication." Rich is now also Content Director of Texere Publishing, the company behind The Analytical Scientist.
