About Foreign Interference

While the overwhelming majority of researchers participating on NIH grants, whether U.S. or foreign-born, are honest, hard-working contributors to the advancement of knowledge that benefits us all, the U.S. government has ongoing concerns about inappropriate interference by foreign governments over federally funded research. In August 2018, the NIH Director issued a statement about incidents that violate core principles and threaten the integrity and academic competitiveness of U.S. biomedical research and innovation.

Types of Problems

Since NIH started working in 2016 on undue foreign interference in NIH-funded research, we have become aware of three types of problems:

• Undisclosed sources of foreign research support which has led to NIH making ill-informed funding decisions. These sources of support include undisclosed foreign employment, undisclosed foreign talent recruitment awards, and undisclosed foreign research grants. We have seen cases in which scientists' misrepresentations led to NIH funding duplicative projects or projects compromised by conflicts of commitment. Here is one example.
• Unidentified or unmanaged Investigator Financial Conflicts of Interests (FCOIs) – An Investigator’s failure to disclose foreign Significant Financial Interests (SFIs) may result in unidentified or unmanaged FCOIs which compromise the objectivity of NIH-funded research. These circumstances have led NIH to review financial disclosure requirements at various institutions to determine the institution’s compliance with FCOI disclosure requirements and many other FCOI regulatory requirements (e.g., FCOI training, disclosure, determination of FCOI, etc.) to ensure NIH’s research is protected from bias involving Investigator financial interests. See the FCOI regulation 42 CFR Part 50 Subpart F, the NIH Grants Policy Statement Section 4.1.10 Financial Conflict of Interest, or NIH’s FCOI website for more information.
• Violations of peer review integrity rules. For example, one scientist sent confidential NIH grant applications to scientists in China, even though he had signed an attestation that he would not share any peer review materials with anyone

In some cases, we refer allegations to OIG for further investigation. Criminal or civil complaints have led to multiple convictions false claims settlements.