Over the past two decades, questions have continued to arise about the cost of research in the U.S., and whether the growing number of federal regulations increase the monetary and time costs to individual researchers and their institutions. Several recent reports have identified ways to reduce the regulatory burden, but many of those recommendations have not been implemented. A committee of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will review and prioritize federal actions that could improve regulatory efficiency and potentially reduce costs in the academic research environment, particularly for the academic researcher.
The committee will undertake an expedited effort to describe the impacts of administrative workload and current regulations on research productivity; analyze federal research regulations in light of the 2016 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.
The committee will produce a brief report that presents a menu of prioritized options for federal actions to improve regulatory efficiency affecting researchers and their institutions, including initiatives by the White House and executive agencies or Congress. The options presented will describe the anticipated impacts on reducing different types of administrative workload, noting potential unintended consequences, while minimizing risk to accountability and research performance. Finally, the committee will describe, to the extent possible, new developments, such as the application of new technologies like AI, that could improve administrative efficiency.