Building Capacity to Manage RISC

Building Capacity to Manage RISC: Investing in Research Integrity, Security, and Compliance at UMBC through Practices, Processes, and Partnerships

Are you part of a compliance team at a university that typically receives between $30 to $100 million in federal research funding?

If so, we invite you to please take our brief, 10-minute survey, which is designed to understand how institutions—particularly but not limited to universities with annual federal research expenditures between $30 to $100 Million—are addressing evolving security requirements.  Responses can remain anonymous if you prefer not to identify yourself or your institution.

Your insights will help us:

  1. Understand how the research security concerns identified in our work thus far may reflect broader trends across similar institutions.
  2. Identify any additional insights or challenges about the research security and compliance needs facing mid-sized and smaller institutions.

Participating in the survey may also help you identify areas of need related to research security and compliance at your own institution.

We plan to present preliminary findings at the 67th NCURA Annual Meeting in Washington, D.C. in August 2025 and potentially at additional conferences, including AIEA (February 2026), ASCE (February 2026), and AUECO (May 2026).

This survey is part of UMBC’s National Science Foundation (NSF) five-year award, “Building Capacity to Manage RISC: Investing in Research Integrity, Security, and Compliance at UMBC through Practices, Processes, and Partnerships.” Our team, led by UMBC in partnership with Delaware State University, Morgan State University, and the University of Maryland Eastern Shore, is developing a scalable model to build and support the research security and compliance capacity of institutions that typically receive between $30 to $100 million in federal research funding.  Resources and models developed from this project will eventually be publicly available for wider use. Our aim is to assist all institutions, especially smaller and mid-sized research universities, that are looking to scale up their security program, in response to new policies and guidance emerging from an increasingly complex federal regulatory landscape.

The survey has been approved by UMBC’s Institutional Review Board (IRB) protocol #1911.

Supported by the Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Economic Development (GRANTED) program of the National Science Foundation, this project develops a sustainable model for building and supporting the capacity of mid-sized and smaller research universities to implement new and emerging Federal research security policies. Research integrity, security, and compliance are critical components of the research enterprise. These areas are also highly complex and rapidly evolving, in response to dynamic world events that drive Federal policies, guidelines, and other regulatory requirements.

Mid-sized and smaller institutions are expected to keep pace as new policies and guidance emerge, but they often do not have the same ability as larger, more highly resourced institutions to immediately respond to new regulations by adapting or building needed systems and processes.

The project will create, test, and implement a significant blueprint for how mid-sized and smaller research universities can adhere to new and emerging research security policies. In Phase One, a Research Integrity, Security, and Compliance (RISC) program model will be developed and evaluated in a partnership among UMBC, Delaware State University, Morgan State University, and University of Maryland, Eastern Shore.

In Phase Two, the program model and materials will be translated into a RISC Roadmap: a publicly accessible information pipeline and compendium of adaptable resources, including online learning modules and trainings, which will be shared on a regional and national scale. The RISC Roadmap will help other institutions overcome the barrier of creating such programs from scratch and assist them in responding to research integrity, security, and compliance guidance and meeting institutional needs.

Overall, the project will help mid-sized and smaller research universities build capacity in the key areas of research integrity, security, and compliance, in ways that help ensure access to and implementation of research guidance for all types of U.S. research institutions.

UMBC leads new program to build research security compliance support for mid-sized universities: Read this UMBC News story about our RISC program!

This project, “Building Capacity to Manage RISC: Investing in Research Integrity, Security, and Compliance at UMBC through Practices, Processes, and Partnerships,” is supported by the Growing Research Access for Nationally Transformative Economic Development (GRANTED) program of the National Science Foundation, Award #2422166. It has been approved by the UMBC Institutional Review Board, Protocol #1426.

Disclaimer:  Under the NSF funded RISC Award #2422166, UMBC is providing the information contained in our presentations, materials, and discussions to assist small to mid-sized universities further develop their research security program office to fit their school’s research portfolio. UMBC cannot answer or provide consultation on specific instances of research security matters encountered by your university. We would recommend that you consult with your university’s legal authority for specific issues.