piner@pur-phy.UUCP (Richard Piner) (02/15/86)
Posted: Fri Feb 14, 1986 1:23 PM EST Msg: CGIG-2182-7547 From: RPARK To: WHATSNEW CC: RPARK Subj: What's New, 14 February 1986 Washington, D.C. 1. DOE-SUPPORTED RESEARCH FACILITIES will be required to accept classified work according to a new DoE policy. DoE has been sulking since 1983 when they were rebuffed in their attempt to use the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Laboratory to do classified work on detectors used in nuclear weapons testing. 200 Stanford scientists signed a petition to bar the work. The new policy requires that any major DoE facility that represents a unique research capability must accept contractual provisions allowing for the possibility of classified research. Initially, the DoE sought to issue a regulation to this effect, but the outcry from universities persuaded the DoE to follow the less public route of contract negotiations. The new policy could create a serious dilemma for universities with strict prohibitions against classified research that have aspirations for major new facilities. 2. THE PROPOSED REVISION OF CIRCULAR A-21, which sets the policy for overhead on university research, was announced this week by the Office of Management and Budget (see What's New, 31 Jan 86). The revision drops all pretense of the long-standing policy that the federal government bear its full share of the cost of the university research it supports. The revision fixes the administrative portion of the overhead at 26% of modified total direct costs. This figure is based on average rates over a 5-year period, which may have some tenuous rationale, but effective 1 Apr 87, the proposed revision would arbitrarily reduce the figure to 20%. Moreover, the expected sweetening in the form of eliminating requirements for faculty effort reporting and cost sharing is nowhere to be seen. University administrators, already traumatized by weeks of fretting over the consequences of Gramm-Rudman, may be forced to re-think whether they can afford to expand research. OMB has allowed only 30 days for comment on the proposed revision. 3. THE PRESENTATION OF DOD-SPONSORED PAPERS is to be governed by a proposed rule just released. The wordy but relatively innocuous rule is less noteworthy for what is says than for what it doesn't. It began as an instruction to scientific and technical societies on the conduct of what the DoD euphemistically refers to as "export-controlled sessions." Attendance at such sessions is restricted on the basis of nationality. In September, however, the presidents of 12 societies, including the APS, signed a letter to Secretary of Defense Weinberger making it clear that they would have no part of restricted access meetings (See What's New, 20 Sept 85). Thus repulsed, the DoD shrank the rule to its present essentially in-house form. Robert L. Park (202) 429-1946 American Physical Society THAT'S ALL 2/14/86