Flexibility
Many of the Department's research activities are legislated and regulated in a way that provides very little flexibility to respond to new opportunities and challenges, or to administer programs effectively. Under the current statute, we must have exactly five national research institutes, we must divide the money between research centers and field-initiated studies in a set proportion, we must regulate in order to direct money to a new research topic, and on and on. We need not only the flexibility to direct funds into particular areas of national need, but also the ability for our organization to evolve and adapt over time without requiring an act of Congress. In a recent workshop held at the National Academy of Sciences, a research administrator at the NIH said, "I work for an organization that can literally turn on a dime. We are not encumbered by the amount of regulation that OERI is. OERI should never be held to a quality standard until regulations are out of there."
While regulatory action is needed in some aspects of our work, strict procedures and constraints are detrimental to providing timely and useful research. At the NIH and other federal agencies, the initiation of grant competitions requires only internal review. In the Department of Education, in contrast, we are required by law to regulate separately for each competition and review. Thus we must publish what we intend to do in the Federal Register, wait for public comment, and revise in light of that comment. Establishing review criteria and standing review panels also require regulation. New legislation can release us from the heavy burden of regulation involved in new grant competitions.
These regulatory hurdles add up to six months to the time necessary to initiate funding competitions in the Department of Education compared to the NIH. We believe that the occasion for public comment through the regulatory process is when long-term priorities are being set, not when specific research funding announcements are sent to the scientific community. Releasing the research agency from these regulatory burdens for routine grant competitions would be tremendously helpful, both for managing the agency and for improving the quality of research.
Another area in which we need more flexibility is in budget and appropriations. When there are separate authorizations for particular, narrow components of our work, there are two predictable consequences. The first is that we are not able to move quickly into a new area of activity that is important. The second is increased pressure to fund work of lower than desirable quality. New legislation that would give us a consolidated budget and that would allow us the flexibility to shift funds to areas of promising research would help tremendously. We could respond quickly to new areas of research need and ensure that our funding decisions are driven entirely by the quality and relevance of the projects that are competing for awards.
