Level Up: Navigating the Regulated Research Instance

Research in higher education moves forward in response to societal need and in consideration of future needs. Today's regulation attempts to reduce risks to research data by articulating expectations and data protection standards. These standards may make it difficult for research organizations to fully understand objectives and obstacles (NSPM-33? CUI? CMMC?) against a backdrop of increasing technological complexity. At the same time, the standards can be overly proscriptive, specifying controls for specific operating systems, or idealized. They can inadvertently create competing standards that the research organization must reconcile, such as the demands for Open Science against Confidential Unclassified Information. Navigating the regulated research instance and its complexities requires an intentional roadmap. This process necessarily begins with a robust training, awareness and communications campaign focused from the lens of the researcher/PI. Once there's a shared understanding of both challenges and opportunities, the policy, technical capabilities, and programmatic become a more natural conversation and shared approach for larger, federated institutions, ultimately fueling success in implementation. This presentation examines the complexities of compliance in today's research landscape, using examples from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign of managing the challenges and risks in regulated research.