University Of California Settles Charges That Researcher Got Overlapping Federal Grants

The University of California has agreed to pay almost $500,000 to settle allegations that a materials scientist at UC Davis got duplicative federal grants to fund the same research.

The university reached the settlement on Dec. 11 with the Department of Energy and the National Science Foundation, according to the U.S. Attorney’s Office for the Eastern District of California. The agencies allege that a researcher failed to disclose “duplicative and overlapping research” on grant applications to the two agencies.

The two grants were awarded in 2006. The DOE grant was renewed four times for a total award amount of $1.1 million. The NSF grant was a one-time award of $100,000. Chemical engineer and materials scientist Tonya Kuhl was the principal investigator on both.

The agencies allege that Kuhl did not report the overlap on the grant applications or in progress reports or renewal applications. “These false and misleading statements caused DOE and NSF to approve duplicative grant funding that these agencies would not otherwise have awarded,” according to a statement from the U.S. Attorney’s Office.

The university did its own investigation when it learned about the allegations in 2010, UC Davis spokesman Andy Fell says. “The university has always maintained there is no wrongdoing,” he says. UC settled in the interest of putting the matter to rest and letting Kuhl get on with her research, Fell says. As part of the settlement, DOE is releasing $226,000 of Kuhl’s funding that it had held up pending the outcome of the investigation.

Kuhl continues to be eligible to receive federal research funding and received another NSF grant this year. As of C&EN’s deadline, Kuhl had not responded to a request for comment.

As part of the settlement, UC Davis will also start more extensive training on reporting the time spent on funded research, reasonable costs, and other aspects of federal grants for graduate students, postdocs, and early-career scientists, Fell says.

“When more than one federal agency funds the same research, the integrity of the grant-making process is undermined and scarce research dollars are diverted from other potentially valuable innovation,” says NSF Inspector General Allison C. Lerner.