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Category: Biomedical Research

Presidential Proclamation on Non-Immigrant Visas

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Today, President Trump signed an executive order curtailing H-1B, H-2B, H-4, L, and certain J visas, as well as immigrant visas, through December 31, 2020: “Proclamation Suspending Entry of Aliens Who Present a Risk to the U.S. Labor Market Following the Coronavirus Outbreak”.

Limited exemptions may be provided for those working in the food supply chain, as well as limited national security exemptions as determined by the Secretaries of State and Homeland Security. Also exempted under Sec. 4(a)(i) are persons providing medical care for COVID-19 patients or conducting medical research to combat COVID-19. With regards to J visas, professors, alien physicians, and research scholars appear to be exempt.

The proclamation applies only to persons who are outside the United States and who do not hold a valid non-immigrant visa or official permission to travel as of June 24, 2020.

The full text of the proclamation is available here. Our office is actively working with our partners to better understand the scope of this proclamation, and will update this post as new information becomes available.

Research Community Reiterates Call for At Least $26 Billion for Research

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In an updated letter to Congressional leadership, associations representing a swath of research institutions reiterated their call to invest at least $26 billion in scientific research in future COVID-19 response bills.  Unlike previous communications, this letter calls out specific funding levels for a number of individual agencies, including:

  • $3 billion for NSF
  • $3 billion for DOD
  • $10 billion for NSF
  • $5 billion for DOE
  • $2 billion for NASA

The letter also calls for additional funds for agencies which have research budgets greater than $100 million, including NOAA and the Institute for Education Science.

The letter is available here.

Higher Ed Community Seeking Support for Research and Additional Funds for Institutions in “Phase 4”

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As the push for a “Phase 4” coronavirus bill gains steam, the higher education community has come up with a set of requests for the still-developing package, some of which would augment provisions in “Phase 3” while others would create new sources of funding.

The broader higher education community is jointly advocating for this proposal, which would add approximately $47 billion to the Higher Education Fund that was created in the $2.2-trillion CARES Act.  The request is based on a set of assumptions that the community made in order to craft a timely proposal.

The research university community is making another push for research funding in a Phase 4 package.  In an effort to address a portion of the problems being caused by the pandemic, the group proposal calls for, among other items, $26 billion in the next legislative package to address the various needs in the research enterprise.

Broader Higher Education Community Looks to Engage with Federal Government to Address Community-Wide Challenges

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Yesterday, the broader higher education community sent to Congress a series of recommendations and requests for assistance aimed at stabilizing the entire enterprise as it tries to cope with COVID-19.  The requests fall into a number of distinct categories:

  • One set of requests addresses the immediate financial challenges facing both students and institutions.
  • Another set of requests focuses on the unique circumstances that research universities face as they deal with trying to mitigate the impact on research.
  • The third set  focuses on tax-related provisions that could assist students, families, and institutions.

Opposing the EPA “Transparency Rule”

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On November 13th, UW signed onto a letter circulated by the Michael J Fox Foundation to the House Committee on Science, Space, and Technology. The letter opposes the Strengthening Transparency in Regulatory Science rule, which would require raw data to be made publicly available when it is used to formulate new regulations. UW is joined by over sixty other higher education institutions, associations, and research organizations in opposing these rule changes. There are many instances, especially in the health sciences, when making raw data publicly available would be infeasible or harm the confidentiality of research subjects. Therefore, this rule could limit the quality of data used in the regulatory process, as only data which could be made publicly available would be utilized.