Friday, 16 September 1988
1.
"THE FLORIDA DEMONSTRATION PROJECT" HAS BEEN EXPANDED
to include 26 additional universities. Unnecessary administrative
burdens on sponsored research have been a source of frustration
to every PI. In April of 1986, at the urging of the Government-
Industry-University Roundtable of the National Academy of
Sciences, five federal agencies joined with the Florida State
University System and the University of Miami in a test of
simplified paperwork requirements. Requirements for agency prior
approval of expenditures, such as foreign travel and permanent
equipment, were eliminated. The project also allows grantees to
incur pre-award costs up to 90 days before the effective date of
the grant and to extend the period of the grant without agency
approval. But perhaps the most significant change was to allow
the grantee to charge expenditures to related research grants in
the most effective way, without detailed justifications. Changes
in the scope of the research still require agency approval. On
the basis of the first two years of the test, the Presidential
Task Force on Regulatory Relief concluded that, if extended to
the national level, the simplified system would free more than
$60M worth of investigators' time for additional research.
2
. THE COUNCIL ON COMPETITIVENESS CALLS FOR ELEVATING THE
NATIONAL SCIENCE ADVISOR
to the position of Assistant to the
President for Science and Technology with Cabinet-level status.
The Council is a private organization created two years ago to
push for implementation of the recommendations of the President's
Commission on Industrial Competitiveness. The report of the
President's Commission was received with polite thanks by the
President and then left to gather dust on Washington bookshelves.
It deserved a better fate, but at the urging of Jay Keyworth, who
was then the Science Advisor, it included a politically naive
recommendation to create a Department of Science and Technology.
Since such a Department would be carved out of existing agencies,
the entire Cabinet ganged up to bury the report. John Young, CEO
of Hewlett-Packard, who headed the President's Commission, is now
the Chairman of the Council on Competitiveness. The report of
the Council, which was released this week, makes it very clear
that they are not calling for the creation of a new Department.
3. A NEW STUDY ON NATIONAL SECURITY EXPORT CONTROLS
by the
National Academy is called for in the Trade Bill. The study will
not be greeted with enthusiasm by the Pentagon. It is a follow-up
to the 1987 "Allen Report," which examined the impact of export
controls on global competition. It characterized current policies
as costly, ineffective, an obstacle to foreign trade and often
damaging to relations with our allies. The new study is supposed
to recommend remedies. The Pentagon sought to block the Allen
report and reneged on its commitment to provide $100K as its
share of the study cost. An amendment by Rep. AuCoin (D-OR) to
the Defense Authorization Act finally forced DOD to ante up.
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