b*****d
发帖数: 61690 | 1 【 以下文字转载自 Military 讨论区 】
发信人: brihand (brihand), 信区: Military
标 题: NIH也准备打击两面通吃了
发信站: BBS 未名空间站 (Fri Aug 31 12:30:54 2018, 美东)
Fears that foreign governments are tapping U.S.-funded research for valuable
information have reached the nation's largest research funder, the National
Institutes of Health (NIH) in Bethesda, Maryland. Last week it sent a
letter to more than 10,000 research institutions, urging them to ensure that
NIH grantees are properly reporting their foreign ties. The agency also
said it is investigating about a half-dozen cases in which NIH-funded
investigators may have broken reporting rules, and it reminded researchers
who review grant applications that they should not share proposal
information with outsiders.
At a Senate committee hearing on NIH oversight last week, NIH Director
Francis Collins said “the robustness of the biomedical research enterprise
is under constant threat” and “the magnitude of these risks is increasing,
” although he did not mention specific incidents. He added that in addition
to sending the 20 August letter asking institutions to help curb “
unacceptable breaches of trust and confidentiality,” NIH has established a
new advisory group to help the agency tighten procedures.
NIH is feeling pressure from Congress. At the hearing, Senate health
committee chair Senator Lamar Alexander (R–TN) lauded the contributions of
foreign-born scientists to the United States but worried about “bad actors.
” His comments reflect a resurgence of concern about foreign competitors to
the United States—especially China, Russia, and Iran—attempting to
harvest the fruits of federal investments in academic science. In March,
federal prosecutors indicted nine Iranians on charges of hacking into the
accounts of nearly 4000 professors at 144 U.S. universities and stealing
data that cost $3.4 billion to develop. In another case, a professor at Duke
University in Durham, North Carolina, has alleged that a Chinese doctoral
student working in his laboratory on materials for “cloaking” objects from
electromagnetic waves returned to China with sensitive, government-funded
findings that he used to start a succesful tech company. Such incidents have
prompted the Federal Bureau of Investigation to begin to meet with
university officials to brief them on information security issues.
Adding to the worries is the growing number of researchers who receive
funding from—and run laboratories in—the United States and another nation,
potentially opening a conduit for the transfer of data and technology. U.S.
-based scientists are also being targeted by so-called talent recruitment
programs run by China and others, which offer lucrative funding.
In general, NIH and other federal research funders don't bar U.S.-based
grantees from receiving foreign funding, often sponsor research conducted
jointly with scientists in other nations, and encourage grantees to freely
share the results of funded research unless the government stamps it as
classified. But grantees do have to inform the government if they patent
research discoveries as well as disclose all sources of funding when
applying for a grant. |
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