Pittsburgh Professor IRB Settlement: False Approvals Behind NSF Grants

A University of Pittsburgh professor agreed to pay $132,027 to resolve allegations of false IRB approval statements in NSF grants. The proposals at issue sought more than $2.3 million in funding. The government alleged that he created false approvals for research involving human subjects, then made or caused payment requests certifying compliance with the awards. The alleged falsehood followed the grant from application to payment.

The Department of Justice announced the settlement on March 21, 2018. The professor was the principal investigator on the research, and the National Science Foundation awarded the funding to the University of Pittsburgh.

His broader NSF work was substantial. The announcement described more than 24 awards valued at over $50 million on which he had served as principal investigator since 1998. The allegations concerned the proposals described above.

Why IRB Approval Mattered to the NSF Grants

Institutional review board approval was a safeguard for the people participating in the research. The Department of Justice described his education and psychology research as frequently involving human subjects. It explained that NSF required IRB approvals for research involving human subjects to protect their rights and welfare.

That requirement gave the approval document a job in the funding process. The proposal described research for which human-subject review was required, and the accompanying approval represented that the requirement had been met. According to the government, the approval documents in this case were false.

From False Approvals to Grant Payments

The government alleged that the false approvals supported both the applications for NSF funding and later certifications about the awards. Its account follows the representation from the proposal to the money and then into reports on the project.

The Proposals Carried the Approval

From 2006 through 2016, the professor allegedly created false IRB approvals and submitted them with multiple proposals for NSF funding. After each submission, according to the Department of Justice, NSF awarded funding to the university with the professor as principal investigator, and award funds were drawn down.

In the government’s account, the false approval helped obtain the grant. Someone familiar with the project’s actual review could recognize a discrepancy before seeing a payment request. Someone familiar with the grant award could see where that disputed approval had been used to obtain funding. We bring those views together: what the project had obtained and what the agency was told it had obtained.

The Payment Requests Repeated the Assurance

The government alleged that the professor made, or caused others to make, false claims for payment by certifying that drawdowns complied with the awards’ terms and conditions. Proper IRB approval, it said, had not been in place.

The alleged falsehood did not end with the application. It carried into requests for the money. The person who created the allegedly false approval could also cause others to make the payment request.

The Reports Carried It Forward

The United States also alleged false certifications in annual and project reports associated with the awards. The reporting allegation extended the concern beyond the initial proposal and the drawdown.

In the government’s account, the same approval issue shows up at different stages of the grant.

The People Behind the Approval Requirement

The NSF Inspector General explained in the settlement announcement that IRB review helps ensure research involving human subjects is conducted safely, appropriately and consensually. Bypassing it can put participants at risk.

We expect an approval to protect the people in the study. Here, the government alleged that false approvals helped obtain funding without proper IRB approval. Protection on paper.

Federal research awards are highly competitive, as the U.S. Attorney’s Office emphasized. Honest researchers compete for that funding while meeting the approval requirements. We see the unfairness in seeking the same taxpayer money with allegedly false approvals, while putting research participants at risk.

Different Grant Claims, Different False Assurances

Other grant cases show why the particular representation matters. An approval, a research result and an effort report each tell the funding agency something different about the project it is supporting.

In the Duke University settlement, the government alleged that National Institutes of Health and Environmental Protection Agency grants relied on fabricated or falsified mouse research and resulting statements. That fabricated-research allegation concerned the scientific results represented to the agencies.

At Rice University, the government alleged that NSF budgets and drawdowns charged stipends, tuition remission and associated overhead for graduate teaching unrelated to the funded research.

The Scripps Research Institute settlement concerned allegations that existing National Institutes of Health projects paid for faculty time spent on new grant applications, teaching, committee work and administration without adequate effort accounting. The whistleblower’s complaint described why a report could conceal which grant paid for which work:

That allegation gives an insider’s knowledge a concrete purpose. The form presented an account of the work. The person doing the work could explain what the form concealed. In an approval case, knowledge of the actual review plays that role. The useful connection is between the agency’s paperwork and the research behind it.

What the Settlement Required

The NSF Office of Inspector General investigated the matter, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Western District of Pennsylvania handled the investigation leading to the settlement.

Under the settlement announced in 2018, the professor agreed to exclusion from applying for or participating in federal grants through October 15, 2019, and to withdraw from pending federal-funding applications. He also agreed to provide NSF with certifications and assurances of truthfulness for up to five years, and not to serve as an NSF reviewer, advisor or consultant for three years.

The assurance requirements returned to the issue at the center of the allegations: what the researcher represented to the agency about the work for which he sought funding.

The Records a Research Insider Would Recognize

The records in this case connect approval, funding and continuing assurances. We examine the NSF proposal alongside the approval it represented, then connect that account to the award drawdowns, payment certifications, and annual and project reports.

For a researcher, the important knowledge may be whether the required review had actually occurred. For a grant administrator, it may be where an approval appeared in the submission or which certification supported a request for funds. Those perspectives answer different parts of the same question: how did the agency come to fund research on the representation that proper approval was in place?

The government’s allegation that the professor made or caused the payment claims matters here. We follow the representation through the people who prepared it and the submissions that relied on it. Your view inside the research can explain a document that, read alone, appears to satisfy the grant’s requirements.

A whistleblower case under the False Claims Act can pay 15% to 30% of what the government recovers. We help you build the strongest case your grant evidence supports and pursue a whistleblower reward.

When You Know the Approval Was Missing

If an NSF submission claims an approval that does not match the research you know, talk with our whistleblower experts about the approval and the funding it supported. We build the case beside you, connecting the research history to the grant representations and bringing in federal research-grant whistleblower lawyers who understand those connections. Bring us what you know about the missing approval, and let’s build your strongest grant fraud whistleblower case.