NIH supports our valued Asian American, Asian immigrant and Asian research colleagues

Over the past several years, NIH has taken actions to address serious threats to the integrity of NIH-funded research. These actions have resulted in significant reductions in violations of peer review confidentiality, failures in reporting foreign employment and financial support, and failures in providing NIH with legally required access to records and scientific data from foreign subrecipients of primary grantees. Many of the concerning practices that NIH has attempted to address have originated from the government of the People’s Republic of China (PRC). I recognize that certain government actions to protect against concerning activities by the PRC, as recently reported by the Department of Homeland Security, have had the unintended consequence of creating a difficult climate for our valued Asian American, Asian immigrant and Asian research colleagues who may feel targeted and alienated. While I fully support NIH’s efforts to address serious integrity breaches instigated by the PRC, I believe there are opportunities to do this in a way that protects our relationships with our trusted Asian research colleagues.

NIH greatly values our relationship with Asian researchers and recognizes their extraordinary contributions to advancing science. More broadly, NIH strives to promote a diverse and inclusive research community to deliver the best results for the American people. We wish to preserve and build these relationships as we work to solve the most complex biomedical research and public health challenges.

I want to be clear that discrimination and harassment are unacceptable. Consistent with NSPM-33 Implementation Guidance, NIH’s approach to addressing foreign interference has been and continues to be applied in a nondiscriminatory manner that does not stigmatize or treat unfairly members of the research community, including members of ethnic or racial minority groups, and in a manner that does not discriminate with respect to national origin or identity.

While NIH must continue to enforce grant policy that ensures the integrity of the research we support with U.S. tax dollars, we are working with stakeholder groups, universities and academic professional organizations to take actions that repair our relationships with these valued members of the research community. These actions include working with other government agencies on research security training, malign foreign talent program recruitment guidelines, a newly created NIH decision matrix and common disclosure forms to protect the integrity of NIH-funded research while encouraging scientific collaborations with other countries that are necessary for advancing the NIH mission. With these actions, I hope to ensure that NIH-funded institutions cultivate a welcoming and supportive environment for Asian researchers, as well as researchers from all other backgrounds.

Monica M. Bertagnolli, M.D.
Director, National Institutes of Health