Downsizing vs. Streamlining

In “Simplify Research Regulations” (Issues, Winter 2026), Alan I. Leshner and Alex M. Helman provide an overview of the strategies described in the National Academies’ Simplifying Research Regulations and Policies report for cutting through the bureaucratic thicket that stifles federally funded science. Of the 53 options presented in the report, 22 address regulatory fragmentation between agencies, proposing ways to centralize processes or establish clear agency ownership of procedures.

There’s an elephant in the room, though (or perhaps in the report). Implementing the proposed regulatory reforms requires expert staff empowered to streamline bureaucratic processes. While the Trump administration supports cutting bureaucracy, losing 335,000 civil servants leaves limited staff capacity for the complex work reform would require. And due to consolidated decisionmaking in the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and intensified oversight by political appointees, the remaining civil servants may hesitate to tackle procedural reforms.

While Congress may not have foreseen OMB’s newfound power, it did direct OMB to coordinate federal science via a Research Policy Board in 2016. Such a board would facilitate the envisioned deregulation and interagency alignment. Leshner and Helman offer an alternative to the proposed board, recommending that OMB create a permanent position to coordinate interagency research policy—likely a more viable option that would require less effort.

Even without a central authority, agencies can do much to simplify their own processes if equipped with sufficient qualified, empowered staff. Suggesting hiring bureaucrats to cut bureaucracy may seem counterproductive, but I’m not proposing mass hiring; rather, agencies should recruit experienced staff to trim and reconcile fragmented regulations. These roles could be filled through a mix of career and term-limited staff, as well as experts recruited via intergovernmental personnel agreements. Effective staff members could easily pay for themselves multiple times over by reducing the procedural burden on science.

The National Institutes of Health presents a model of streamlining processes worth emulating. NIH is infamously sprawling and bureaucratic, but has successfully pared down grant requirements and processes in recent months. For example, NIH no longer categorizes Basic Experimental Studies Involving Humans as clinical trials, reducing the regulatory burden on many studies. The agency also removed the requirement for letters of intent when requesting more than $500,000 in direct costs, which will both save work for scientists and staff and make grants more efficient, since some scientists used to artificially cap their grants at $500,000 to avoid paperwork. Conversations with NIH leadership suggest that more process improvements may be on the way.

These changes require empowered civil servants and political cover. Though NIH lost thousands of staff in the past year, its director has committed to reducing administrative burdens and authorized career managers to get it done. With limited staff capacity, such initiatives require trade-offs, whether that means deprioritizing tasks or expanding responsibilities. But the outcomes are well worth it.

Federally funded science needs deregulation. Agencies should hire and empower creative staff who have the gumption to implement the recommendations in Simplifying Research Regulations and Policies and to design high-impact reforms not yet imagined.

Andrew Gerard

By all means, yes to the call to “Simplify Research Regulations” offered by Alan I. Leshner and Alex M. Helman. The authors’ diagnosis and prescription are spot on. Excessive and duplicative research regulations are eroding efficiency and diverting talent from discovery, and the recent National Academies report they highlight, Simplifying Research Regulations and Policies, provides actionable solutions. Now is the time to act to unleash science and innovation before US leadership further falters as other nations continue to accelerate their competitiveness and challenge ours. The Academies’ report, along with decades of analysis, has clearly stated the benefits of scientific leadership and how critical it is for the nation’s health, economy, and national security. Simplifying research regulations is one key component to science and innovation leadership.

The authors and the Academies’ panel that wrote the report note the urgency and rightly comment that while it may not be easy to reduce the red tape encumbering research, new government structures can be created to make it easier to determine solutions and act on them. The report’s 53 options—presented with pros and cons for each—make the report decision-ready and tee up policymakers to take action.

Actions should be guided by principles the authors, COGR (the group I lead with a mission of providing a unified voice on federal research policy for US research universities, affiliated medical centers, and independent research institutions), and other individuals and organizations including:

• alleviate time burden on researchers so they can spend more of their talent and time performing research,
• calibrate research regulations to risk so as to manage and mitigate risks without unnecessarily impeding creativity and innovative science, and
• create evergreen government structures that foster a whole-of-enterprise view that is informed by the needs and concerns of research performers and the unique components of the federal agencies that fund research.

The federal Office of Science Technology and Policy, working directly with research funding agencies, should take the lead in determining which of the options will foster an optimal research environment for researchers, institutions, and agencies to perform their respective roles and responsibilities. Using these principles will help advance a US research enterprise in which: 1) researchers do more of what they do best—research; 2) institutional research and compliance administrators more effectively do what they do best—ensure accountability, integrity, safety, and compliance; and 3) the federal research agencies, including the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation, among others, operate more efficiently and effectively in administering their extramural research budgets and strengthening public confidence in federal research investments and accountability requirements.

With unabating challenges to US science and innovation leadership and rafts of recommendations to reduce the regulatory friction slowing federally sponsored research, failure to act in a meaningful manner now is tantamount to self-sabotage. Implementing commonsense measures to harmonize, streamline, and eliminate duplicative and unnecessary research regulations would establish a more effective regulatory oversight framework and help to rebalance and strengthen the research partnership that underpins American science, innovation, and competitiveness.

Matt Owens