CONTENTS
CONGRESSIONAL ISSUES
- House Leaders Postpone Consideration of Innovation Act
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
- Concern Raised over Proposed Change in Fundamental Research Definition in Export Regulations
OTHER
- Latest Golden Goose Award Winners Announced
- AAU and The Science Coalition Convene SRO Media Roundtable
- AAU and Cottrell Scholars Author Nature Article on Improving Undergraduate STEM Education
CONGRESSIONAL ISSUES
HOUSE LEADERS POSTPONE CONSIDERATION OF INNOVATION ACT
House leaders are delaying consideration of the Innovation Act (H.R. 9) until after the August recess, reports CQ.com. The measure, which had been expected to go to the House floor next week, aims to address abusive patent litigation. But H.R. 9 is opposed by many groups, including AAU, as going too far and making all patents more difficult to enforce.
Earlier this week, three influential conservative groups launched a print and electronic media campaign against the bill, while a bipartisan, bicameral group on Capitol Hill held a press conference on July 14 to speak out against the bill and call for a more targeted approach to rein in patent “trolls.”
EXECUTIVE BRANCH
CONCERN RAISED OVER PROPOSED CHANGE IN FUNDAMENTAL RESEARCH DEFINITION IN EXPORT REGULATIONS
Early last month, two agencies of the federal government proposed to revise definitions in export control rules in ways that would directly affect universities. While some of the proposed changes would provide a welcome harmonization of definitions across the two agencies, there is concern that one of the proposals would unnecessarily narrow the definition of “fundamental research.”
This change would significantly increase the instances in which export licenses would be required to conduct certain defense-related research and stifle university-industry collaborations in those areas.
AAU and the Council on Governmental Relations (COGR) are developing a response to the proposed changes and have provided detailed information about the proposed revisions to their member institutions.
Background. The Commerce Department’s Bureau of Industry and Security (BIS) and the State Department’s Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC) on June 3 issued a set of proposed revisions to definitions in the Export Administration Regulations (EAR) and International Traffic in Arm Regulations (ITAR). The proposed EAR revisions can be found here and the ITAR revisions here.
In general, AAU views the harmonized definitions as an important step forward, but a proposed change in ITAR definitions would exclude any technical data subject to review by a research sponsor prior to publication from being considered "fundamental research." This means that if a university’s corporate research partner required a review of research results before publication to ensure they contained no proprietary information, that research would not be considered fundamental research.
If that were the case, the research would become subject to deemed export controls, requiring the university to impose access controls and apply for and obtain export licenses for every foreign national working on any project involving research/items on the U.S. munition list. This would reduce universities’ willingness to collaborate with industry on such research.
Comments on both sets of proposed rules are due August 3. Questions about this issue should be directed to Tobin Smith at AAU [email protected] or Robert Hardy at COGR ([email protected]).
OTHER
LATEST GOLDEN GOOSE AWARD WINNERS ANNOUNCED
The founders of the Golden Goose Award on July 14 announced the second group of winners for 2015: neurophysiologists Torsten Wiesel and David Hubel. The winners, who are Nobel Prize recipients as well, won for their federally funded research that began with cats staring at black dots on a screen and was boosted by a lab error involving a misplaced glass slide on an overhead projector. Their work eventually led to major progress in understanding the human brain and significant advances in the treatment of cataracts in children, as well as informing today’s groundbreaking research in computer science.
Dr. Wiesel and the late Dr. Hubel conducted their work at The Johns Hopkins University and later at Harvard University.
Earlier this year, the Golden Goose Award founders announced that Walter Mischel, Yuichi Shoda, and Philip Peake would receive the award for their creation and development of the Marshmallow Test. A third set of honorees will be announced in September. The awardees will receive their honors on September 17 at the fourth annual Golden Goose Awards ceremony, which will take place in the Jefferson Building of the Library of Congress, in Washington, DC.
The Golden Goose Award founders also announced on July 10 that Elsevier has agreed to become the award’s first Benefactor, with a contribution of $250,000, to be paid in five $50,000 increments beginning in 2015.
Those interested in the Golden Goose Award can follow it on Twitter.
AAU AND THE SCIENCE COALITION CONVENE SRO MEDIA ROUNDTABLE
AAU and The Science Coalition on July 15 hosted their sixth annual media roundtable, with 10 university senior research officers (SROs) and a group of about a dozen reporters.
During the session, “All Things Research,” participants discussed three general issues: science and the national interest, economic development and the research university, and the possibility of the U.S. facing an innovation deficit.
The SROs participating were from: Boston University; Emory University; the Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Northwestern University; Stony Brook University; The Johns Hopkins University; University of California, Riverside; University of Pittsburgh; University of South Florida; and West Virginia University.
A videotape of the media roundtable is posted here.
AAU AND COTTRELL SCHOLARS AUTHOR NATURE ARTICLE ON IMPROVING UNDERGRADUATE STEM EDUCATION
In a Comment article published July 15 in Nature, representatives of AAU and the Cottrell Scholars program of Research Corporation for Science Advancement (RCSA) conclude that U.S. undergraduates are not being taught science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) subjects as well as they can be.
The article, by Emily R. Miller, Director of the AAU Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative; Tobin L. Smith, AAU Vice President for Policy; Stephen E. Bradforth, Chair and Professor in the Department of Chemistry at the University of Southern California; and other Cottrell Scholars, briefly outlines examples of best-in-class pedagogical practices and programs, and points out that active learning interventions have been shown to improve achievement for all students, particularly those with disadvantaged and ethnic minority backgrounds. Many of the examples are drawn from work being supported by AAU’s Undergraduate STEM Education Initiative.
The Nature article builds on a joint project between AAU and RCSA’s Cottrell Scholars Collaborative, Effective Evaluation of Teaching and Learning. As part of this project, a workshop was held in January 2014. A report released last week by RCSA and AAU, Searching for Better Approaches: Effective Evaluation of Teaching and Learning in STEM, provides a summary of the results of the workshop, along with invited papers and reflections from workshop speakers and participants.