Sponsors (5)
The bill strengthens protections and makes enforcement clearer against targeted foreign recruitment of researchers (boosting national security and regulatory clarity) at the cost of reduced collaboration and career opportunities for some foreign-affiliated researchers and added compliance costs for agencies.
Federal research agencies and scientists-researchers: agencies can more consistently apply restrictions on recruitment from specified foreign countries, helping protect sensitive research and intellectual property from targeted foreign recruitment.
Researchers and federal agencies: clearer rules about which countries trigger restrictions on malign foreign talent recruitment reduce ambiguity in grant and hiring compliance.
Researchers from newly designated countries: may face additional employment and funding restrictions that limit collaboration and career opportunities.
Federal agencies and institutions (and potentially state governments): will incur compliance costs to update policies, disclosure forms, and monitoring to reflect the revised definition.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Expands or clarifies the statutory definition of "foreign country of concern" used to trigger research-related restrictions tied to malign foreign talent recruitment programs.
Expands the legal definition of “foreign country of concern” used for restricting participation in malign foreign talent recruitment programs. The change narrows or broadens which countries trigger restrictions that apply to federal research agencies, covered researchers, and related funding rules, altering who may be subject to vetting or exclusion under those research-integrity rules.
Official title: To amend the Research and Development, Competition, and Innovation Act to clarify the definition of foreign country for purposes of malign foreign talent recruitment restriction, and for other purposes.
Introduced June 5, 2025 by Daniel A. Webster · Last progress June 5, 2025