Ohio St. Pays $875K For Failure to Disclose Professor’s Foreign Government Support

The Ohio State University (OSU), a public university in Columbus, Ohio, has paid $875,689 to resolve civil allegations that it failed to disclose an OSU professor’s affiliations with and support from a foreign government in connection with federal research funding.

This settlement relates to Army, National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), and National Science Foundation (NSF) grants and research support agreements that provided funding to OSU from November 2012 to August 2020. In the funding application process, the Army, NASA the NSF require disclosures of, among other things, foreign government support received by any principal investigator (PI) or co-PI on the grant or agreement.

The settlement resolves allegations that an OSU professor failed to disclose funding that he was receiving from a foreign government in connection with: (1) employment at a foreign public university; (2) participation in a foreign talent plan, a program established by the foreign government to recruit individuals with knowledge or access to foreign technology intellectual property; and (3) a grant from the foreign government’s natural science foundation. As part of its settlement, OSU has agreed to cooperate with the United States government’s investigation of others involved in the alleged violations of law.

The settlement was the result of a coordinated effort between the Civil Division’s Commercial Litigation Branch, Fraud Section and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Southern District of Ohio, with assistance from the FBI, Army, NASA-OIG and NSF.

Topics Ohio