Schools
Northeastern University Settles For $2.7 Million With U.S. Government
Northeastern University in Fenway-Kenmore will pay $2.7 million for failing to account for federal research funds.
The United States government announced today that it reached a major settlement agreement with Northeastern University resolving allegations that, over a nine-year period, the university failed to properly account for federal research funds that it received from the National Science Foundation (NSF).
NSF awarded the funds to support high-energy particle physics research under the direction of Stephen Reucroft, formerly a Northeastern physics professor, at the European Organization for Nuclear Research (CERN) in Geneva, Switzerland.
According to the settlement agreement, Northeastern University has agreed to pay $2.7 million and to submit to a five-year compliance agreement to ensure that proper oversight and safeguards are in place for future research awards.
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“Universities that receive federal research funds have a duty to ensure that their researchers use those funds only for their intended purposes,” U.S. Attorney Carmen M. Ortiz said in a statement. “In this matter, Northeastern failed to adequately safeguard National Science Foundation grant money that had been awarded for the sole purpose of supporting important scientific research.”
The U.S. government alleged that from 2001 to 2010, Northeastern University violated numerous federal government grant regulation requirements, including providing oversight over the NSF award funds they receive and documenting all payments for things such as salaries and travel expenses. They believed the school approved and disbursed numerous advances and other payments of NSF award funds to accounts that Professor Reucroft controlled at CERN without proper justification or verification.
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The U.S. government said Northeastern also failed, for more than two years, to notify NSF when it discovered significant problems with the accounting for award funds paid and knew that at least some of the funds were used to pay Professor Reucroft’s personal expenses.
Want to know the full terms of the agreement? Follow this link.
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