Foreign Research Transparency Act of 2024

The Secretary shall require, by regulation, that, as a condition of the receipt of a covered grant, a primary recipient shall ensure that each agreement entered into by such primary recipient with a foreign secondary recipient provides for such primary recipient to have access to all supporting information related to the research carried out by the foreign secondary recipient, including access to—

(1) raw data;

(2) databases;

(3) notes;

(4) progress reports; and

(5) other information the Secretary determines to be relevant.

Each of the following actors may make a determination that a primary recipient has failed to comply with the regulations issued under subsection (a):

(A) The Secretary.

(B) The Inspector General of the Department of Health and Human Services.

(C) The Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

If a determination that a primary recipient has failed to comply is made under paragraph (1), the Secretary shall—

(i) withhold undistributed grant amounts from the relevant primary recipient until the date on which such recipient comes into compliance, as determined by an appropriate authority; and

(ii) change the status of the relevant primary recipient in the System for Award Management (or successor system) administered by the General Services Administration, and other relevant Federal databases, to a status that prevents Federal funds from being provided to such recipient until the date on which such recipient comes into compliance, as determined by an appropriate authority.

A primary recipient determined to have failed to comply under paragraph (1) and who does not come into compliance, as determined by an appropriate authority, during the 180-day period beginning on the date of the initial determination of a failure to comply, shall return all grant amounts related to the relevant covered grant to the agency that provided such amounts.

In this section, the following definitions apply:

The term appropriate authority means—

(A) the Secretary; or

(B) the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

The term covered grant means a grant awarded under a Department of Health and Human Services program to fund an activity that involves biomedical or behavioral research.

The term foreign secondary recipient means an entity that—

(A) conducts activities—

(i) under an agreement with a primary recipient; and

(ii) to facilitate an activity for which the primary recipient received a covered grant; and

(B) is a foreign entity as that term is defined in section 3 of the Lobbying Disclosure Act of 1995 (2 U.S.C. 1602).

The term primary recipient means an entity that receives a covered grant.