White House unveils long-awaited policy on overseeing research of concern

The White House Of­fice of Sci­ence and Tech­nol­o­gy Pol­i­cy on Tues­day re­leased its long-await­ed pol­i­cy plans for over­see­ing re­search that pos­es risks if mis­ap­plied. The ini­tial re­views from ex­perts are mixed.

OSTP’s 31-page pol­i­cy, which will take ef­fect in one year, aims to de­fine an ex­pand­ed scope of bi­o­log­i­cal and tox­ic re­search sub­ject to ad­di­tion­al over­sight by the gov­ern­ment. It al­so es­tab­lish­es a frame­work for over­see­ing re­search pro­pos­als, and de­fines the dis­tinct roles of re­searchers and the fed­er­al gov­ern­ment.

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