Federal Research: NIH Should Take Further Action to Address Foreign Influence

The National Institutes of Health is a major source of research funding for U.S. universities. It has raised concerns over the fruits of this funding going abroad and undisclosed conflicts of interest. For example, in 2020, investigators found a U.S. university researcher involved in a Chinese-government talent recruitment program failed to disclose hundreds of thousands of dollars in foreign income.

We testified that, among other things, NIH:

Does not address non-financial conflicts such as foreign affiliations in its policy

Has mechanisms to ensure that conflict disclosure requirements are met

Helped start 6 criminal investigations