The U.S. Defense Department has backed off a proposal to require significant new controls, including security badges and restricted laboratory access, for foreign researchers working with sensitive technology at American universities.

Instead, the agency said it would require researchers working on its contracts to follow existing "export control" rules of the U.S. Commerce and State Departments, which are designed to keep technology and weapons important to national security from falling into the hands of terrorists or spies.

The Defense Department's announcement, published in Monday's issue of the Federal Register, came after universities and other research advocates directed a volley of complaints at the agency's original proposal, published last year (The Chronicle, July 18, 2005). University officials predicted that it would interfere with valuable research and create an expensive, duplicative bureaucracy within academic laboratories.

The Defense Department acted just weeks after the Commerce Department decided to withdraw a similarly controversial proposal to tighten its rules on access to sensitive technology by foreign-born researchers working at U.S. institutions (The Chronicle, June 1.) The Commerce Department's existing rules, which remain in place, require foreign scientists to obtain licenses to use such equipment. But the rules provide an exemption for "fundamental research" to advance scientific knowledge, which describes work typically done in university laboratories.

The Defense Department's original proposed rule was more restrictive than the Commerce Department's. Both of the original proposals had alarmed university officials because many U.S. universities employ foreign-born scientists and postdoctoral researchers, many of whom have undergone security checks in order to receive visas to work here.

The Defense Department said in Monday's notice that it had received 113 negative comments about its original proposal, "primarily from the educational-research community." The agency agreed that its original version was "overly prescriptive."

In its revised proposal, the agency suggested adding to its research contracts a requirement reminding contractors of their obligations to meet the Commerce and State Department rules.

The Defense Department requests comments by October 13.

The Commerce Department, meanwhile, has set up a committee to further study its current rules (The Chronicle, May 15).

(The Chronicle of Higher Education)