FYI science policy briefs

Spectrum auctions raise concerns for scientists

The reconciliation spending bill signed by President Trump in July directs the Federal Communications Commission to auction 800 megahertz of radio spectrum to commercial users through fiscal year 2034. The new law, however, does not specify protections for scientific research, despite worries from scientists who say access to certain bands is essential for observations in astronomy and atmospheric science. A summary from the Senate states that the auction revenue would reduce the deficit by $85 billion.

In May, American Astronomical Society (AAS) president Dara Norman sent a letter to the Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation requesting that bands allocated to the radio astronomy service be “excluded from consideration for repurposing and auction.” Those allocations are made “based on the frequencies at which we can observe specific physical phenomena in the universe,” Norman wrote, meaning radio astronomers cannot use other bands to make the same observations. Some bands are similarly important for atmospheric observations. For example, the Next Generation Weather Radar system relies on bands from 2.7 to 2.9 gigahertz to map precipitation patterns and movements. (AAS is a member society of the American Institute of Physics, which publishes Physics Today.)

The few carveouts included by lawmakers relate to bands that are heavily used by the military, Roohi Dalal, deputy director of public policy at AAS, told FYI before the final bill’s passage. Auctioning any of the bands protected for radio astronomy, Dalal said, “would just be another, almost, nail in the coffin for US leadership in radio astronomy.”

National Academies committee seeks ways to cut red tape in research

In response to the Trump administration’s interest in deregulation, a National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committee formed this year is working on a report that will suggest ways to reduce the administrative burden placed on researchers. “We cannot resign our research community and the laboratory and university staff who support them to die the death of a thousand ten-minute tasks,” said Michael Kratsios, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), in a speech in May at the National Academy of Sciences.

OSTP is looking at current requirements and wants to receive actionable and detailed recommendations from the committee to reduce administrative burden, said Lynne Parker, the office’s principal deputy director. The committee is seeking to complete its report quickly; it requested outside input through a survey that closed in June.

Suggestions from attendees of the committee’s kickoff meeting in May included developing solutions to minimize the amount of time that principal investigators have to spend on paperwork, standardizing grant application and review procedures across federal agencies, and creating a central mechanism within the White House Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to streamline and harmonize research regulations. The COGR, an association that represents 229 academic research organizations, has submitted 16 recommendations in response to a broad request for deregulation ideas issued by OMB in April.

There has been around a 170% increase in regulations on research in the past decade, National Academy of Sciences president Marcia McNutt said at the meeting. “This could be a game changer for a time when many in the research community are feeling all sticks and no carrots,” she added. “This is a chance to actually deliver a win for them.”

Higher-ed groups propose new indirect-cost models

The Joint Associations Group (JAG), which includes the Association of American Universities and the COGR, is floating changes to the federal government’s model for reimbursing research institutions for indirect costs. The effort comes as the Trump administration is attempting to cap those rates at a fraction of their previous levels. The proposed Financial Accountability in Research (FAIR) models reframe indirect costs as “essential research support costs,” which presenters at a 12 June public webinar said makes clearer their relevance to research.

Indirect costs, also known as facilities and administrative costs, are used to cover research-related expenses such as equipment and facilities maintenance, IT services, and administrative support. Under the current model, those costs are often calculated as a percentage of the direct research costs. Since February, four agencies have attempted to cap indirect cost rates at 15%, arguing that the caps will ensure that funds go toward direct scientific research costs rather than to administrative overhead. As of Physics Today’s press date, court orders have largely gone in the research institutions’ favor and have blocked the implementation of 15% caps at all four agencies.

One of JAG’s FAIR proposals, described in the June webinar, would set rates for indirect costs using two adjustment types: the institution type and the type of research funded by the grant. The other proposal would treat indirect costs as direct ones by breaking down those costs as line items for each individual grant, with an additional fixed percentage for “general research operations” that are not easily assigned to a project. JAG plans to use community feedback to create one final model, which could be a hybrid of the two proposals, to present to Congress and the executive branch.