NPRM News: Report released by the National Academies

July 1, 2016

The National Academies Committee on Federal Research Regulations and Reporting Requirements released Part 2 of its report, Optimizing the Nation’s Investment in Academic Research; A New Regulatory Framework for the 21st Century on June 29. The full report is now available online. The report addresses regulations relating to export controls, select agents/dual use research, intellectual property and technology transfer reporting and the Common Rule Notice of Proposed Rulemaking (NPRM).

The committee suggests that ‘the NPRM does not adequately or effectively address the breadth, depth, and import of unanswered questions’ and that the current complexity of issues requires thorough consideration from a broad range of disciplines. The report recommends that the executive branch withdraw the Common Rule NPRM and ‘that Congress authorize, and the President appoint, an independent, free-standing national commission modeled on the President’s Commission for the Study of Ethical Problems in Medicine and Biomedical and Behavioral Research,’ a successor to the commission that created the Belmont Report, the foundation for the current Common Rule.