Researchers Resist Pressure to Show Impact of Their Work

February 9, 2014
Aisha Labi, Chronicle of Higher Education

A few years ago, Philip Moriarty, a professor of physics at the University of Nottingham, had had enough. Mr. Moriarty was a member of a peer-review body for the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council, one of the agencies in Britain that control the purse strings of academic research. In 2009 the council began to require that applicants for grants include a "pathways to impact" statement outlining the potential economic and societal effects of their work and who might benefit from it and how. The professor objected, and eventually he said he would no longer review applications. "I said it would be unconscionable to take part in the process," he says.
 
Mr. Moriarty is one of a growing chorus of British academics troubled by the extent to which publicly financed research is now required to demonstrate its economic impact and value to society and how that emphasis may steer the direction of research.   Read more

Poli Sci Victory, For Now

Janaury 24, 2014
Michael Stratford, Inside Higher Ed

Supporters of social science breathed a sigh of relief last week when Congress effectively repealed strict limits on how the National Science Foundation could fund certain types of political science research.

The omnibus appropriations bill that Congress passed and the President signed into law last week did not include the controversial provision that had, for more than nine months, restricted NSF funding for political science to only projects that directly promoted national security and U.S. economic interests.  Read more

New Reforms to Federal Grant Policies

January 17, 2014

Sally Rockey, National Institutes of Health Rock Talk Blog

In February last year I blogged about the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)’s request for comments on proposed federal grant policy reforms. These policies, contained in multiple documents known as circulars, contain Fed-wide regulations on spending, not just for research grants. Many grantees and stakeholder organizations came forth and contributed comments. This information was taken into account by OMB to bring a number of these changes into fruition. The new guidance, “Uniform Administrative Requirements, Cost Principles, and Audit Requirements for Federal Awards”, was announced by OMB in December as one consolidated omnicircular. Here are just a few highlights:   Read more

NRC Panel Seeks Rules Overhaul on Human-Subjects Studies

Paul Basken, Chronicle of Higher Education
January 10, 2014 

The long-snarled bid to revise federal rules governing research on human subjects got a boost on Thursday with a National Research Council analysis that endorsed a substantial overhaul. In a 139-page report, a 15-member panel assisted by dozens of field-specific experts, mostly from American universities, backed changes that include exempting many social-science researchers—such as those conducting oral histories—from the current set of rules.  Read more

 

Welcome to the HKS Research Administration Office News Blog!

RAO
December 18, 2013

We invite all Harvard Kennedy School sponsored research program staff, faculty and assistants to subscribe to our blog for regular updates on news, announcements, and developments in the national and international sponsored research community.

Bill Gates 2013 Annual Letter

Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation 
December 18, 2013 

Excerpt from the Bill Gates 2013 Annual Letter: Over the holidays I read The Most Powerful Idea in the World, a brilliant chronicle by William Rosen of the many innovations it took to harness steam power. Among the most important were a new way to measure the energy output of engines and a micrometer dubbed the "Lord Chancellor," able to gauge tiny distances. Such measuring tools, Rosen writes, allowed inventors to see if their incremental design changes led to the improvements-higher-quality parts, better performance, and less coal consumption-needed to build better engines. Innovations in steam power demonstrate a larger lesson: Without feedback from precise measurement, Rosen writes, invention is "doomed to be rare and erratic." With it, invention becomes "commonplace."
Of course, the work of our foundation is a world away from the making of steam engines. But in the past year I have been struck again and again by how important measurement is to improving the human condition. You can achieve amazing progress if you set a clear goal and find a measure that will drive progress toward that goal-in a feedback loop similar to the one Rosen describes. This may seem pretty basic, but it is amazing to me how often it is not done and how hard it is to get right.
    
Read More