NIH Acts on Harassment, Foreign Influence
BU IN DC
Ha Jin of the College of Arts & Sciences delivered a lecture on poet Li Bai for the Library of Congress on June 11.
The BU Initiative on Cities hosted a webinar on whether federal Opportunity Zones policies are working for cities on June 10.
NIH ACTS ON HARASSMENT, FOREIGN INFLUENCE
In conjunction with last week’s meeting of the Advisory Committee to the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Director, the NIH announced:
- In an effort to address sexual harassment and bullying in academic research, NIH grantees who request either changes in grant personnel or movement of a grant to a new research institution are expected to inform the agency if these changes are related to concerns about safety or work environments. Since December 2019, the NIH has reviewed allegations of sexual harassment at 71 institutions, leading to the removal of 14 principal investigators from NIH grants.
- More than 50 scientists have resigned or been fired as a result of the NIH’s investigation into malign foreign influence in research at more than 85 extramural institutions. To date, approximately 90% of the cases that have been investigated are ones in which the NIH-funded researchers have ties to China.
BUZZ BITS…
- On Thursday, the U.S. Senate confirmed Dr. Sethuraman “Panch” Panchanathan as the next director of the National Science Foundation. Panch is a computer engineer who most recently served as the chief research and innovation officer at Arizona State University.
- The U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday overturned the Trump Administration’s elimination of the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals (DACA) program, allowing roughly 700,000 young immigrant “Dreamers” to remain in the country. The Court, in a 5-4 decision, found that the Administration did not adhere to the law for ending a federal program.
- Last week, the National Institutes of Health named Dr. Rich Woychik as the next director of the National Institute of Environmental Health Sciences (NIEHS). Dr. Woychik has worked at NIEHS since 2010, and has served as its interim director since last year.
GRANTS NEWS YOU CAN USE
The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) Defense Sciences Office (DSO) has released its office-wide broad agency announcement (BAA) soliciting basic and applied research proposals in the following areas: Frontiers in Math, Computation and Design, Limits of Sensing and Sensors, Complex Social Systems, and Anticipating Surprise. Proposers are strongly encouraged to submit an executive summary or abstract prior to submitting a full proposal. Executive summaries, abstracts, and proposals may be submitted on a rolling basis until June 11, 2021.