Streamline Your Maintenance Receipt Format for Research and Development

Maintenance receipt format for Research and Development

foreign good afternoon everybody I'm Mike gruntman I'm chairman of Department of Western electrical engineering we have a very special event today very special lecture as many of you know that the American space Enterprise is regulated by a special set of rules expert controls laws including itar and therefore these regulations are particularly important for our astronautical engineering students and for our graduates who work mostly in space and defense Industries and also in government space research and development centers in spite of this importance for many of these regulations remain mystery and this is why we have this special lecture today about these regulations and we have a very distinguished and knowledgeable speaker Mr Daniel Shapiro from the USC compliance office he's director of research compliance he will introduce himself just in a moment so I want to ask you to hold your questions until the end unless something really burning and then in the end we will have questions and answers and I encourage you to ask questions because again this is a unique opportunity to ask the questions on this topic for the such a knowledgeable speaker also this lecture is being captured the webcast is being captured by the vitorby's distance education Network then we hope that we will post it on the web later and we are grateful we are thankful to Victorious distance education for doing this so Mr Daniel thank you thank you for everything about the distinguished part Hi how are you so yes my name is Dan Shapiro uh I mean like many of you I had undertook my education and obtained my JD from USC a long time ago back in the 90s and um I started in research compliance and my exposure to export controls really began after 9 11 when the United States government started to take the view particularly for research that it was sponsoring through the Department of Defense and in areas some of which are relate to areas in which you you perform your research where the government began to take the view that things that had been historically done that were basic and fundamental and shared broadly within the research community and some fashion needed to be treated differently for reasons of National Security and I'm sure that there was some of that that was valid there's there's a good deal of research for example in this space that's sponsored by the Department of Defense and so there was a real push back then to assign additional restrictions to research research that had been historically done in uh in an unrestricted way and so in the beginning I worked a lot with our researchers to make sure that the the contracts and the grants that they were working on protected the rights to publication that they'd enjoyed for for decades here at USC and and other institutions and so that was kind of how it started was let's protect the actual identified research projects we have that in some fashion are beginning to attempt to retreat from uh the the operating assumption we'd all had for many decades about how it is we do research in universities I think the good news you'll hear out of this presentation is all those principles are still in play but there are certain areas of of research where by virtue of their being covered or or included or referred to in the regulations that Define what is controlled what is an export restricted type of activity an export restricted type of technology that we need to be careful about as we think about what we do as a university to comply with these rules and that certainly has some some implication here for the people in this room and in this unit but you know plays out at a variety of institutes and and locations some of which you may have heard about ICT and isi so it's a it's a moving Target we do our best to keep abreast of of all of the changes that do occur but again most importantly what we try to do and that's why this is titled it's fundamental we're really trying and work very hard and I've worked with Dr gruntman in fact we've been working together recently very closely on projects where um there there's a suggestion or a possibility that something might be subject to these export control regulations and doing what we can to make sure that the research and the work that is done by everybody in this room and more broadly everybody in the School of Engineering and at USC is not impacted by these regulations so what I want to accomplish today is and some of this I'll go over a little bit more quickly than sections I'll go over a little bit more quickly than others I think you know you'll see in this presentation that much of what we're talking about is going to be of most relevance to our principal investigators who have sponsored projects where certain issues may arise but that has an obvious trickle down to those who support them on those sponsored research projects which in many instances includes some or all of you in this room and just really quickly so I can get just a general sense raise of hands how many of you are undergrad students okay in the remainder of grad students okay so really uh uh undergrad students is a little bit less impactful certainly uh grad student research particularly grad student research that would support either a Masters or a PhD dissertation we we really pay close scrutiny to the the kinds of projects that may attempt to restrict because that's a primary goal of a university is to share its research broadly and to facilitate the achievement of educational goals like a master's or a PhD degree so we'll talk a little bit about some of the safe harbors and I think when we talk about safe harbors we really are talking about kind of the core of what it is we argue and what it is I think that protects the vast majority of what happens with here and and more broadly within USC then we'll talk just a little bit about some red flags some areas of research some types of sponsor uh activity that really should cause us to stop and consider more carefully what's happening as to whether or not we have an export control obligation and then very quickly we'll talk about it security practices quite frankly many of the the the Practical implementation of the I.T security requirements are things that happen outside the view of everybody in this room but that nevertheless have real impact and it's worthwhile knowing about them because they may impact how it is you store transmit share data so um let's let's get in and I think it's worthwhile at a very general level just to understand what we talk about when we talk about export control laws what we're talking about laws that regulate the distribution of Technologies equipment hardware and software as well as the provision of technical assistance to foreign Nationals foreign countries and listed individuals in instances that involve export controlled technology so this is really uh both a national security consideration when we talk about things that are covered by our military regulations and we'll talk about the regulations that that apply to this area but we have a set of military regulations and a set of commercial regulations military regulations are the ones that um and and the list is coming and you'll see but military regulations truly do address things like weapons and Western weapon systems and of particular interest to perhaps folks in this room Rockets rocket propulsion technology be satellites things of that sort that while not always having a military application May in the eyes of the government be considered to have a predominant military application and so I like to reach out to departments such as this and other areas that have been called out under the under the military regulations high performance Computing would be another example of that certain types of lasers we use at USC again above certain parameters they've been called out by our Department of State who administers the military regulations as excuse me as technologies that require some additional scrutiny this last point about regulation of payments and certain services to sanctioned individuals as you might imagine core and part of USC's Strategic Mission is to become yet more of a global University 12 out of the last 15 years USC has the number one amount of international students of any University in the country the remaining three years we are ranked number two so it is core to the mission of USC and will remain so that we attract the best and the brightest from all over the world we have well in excess of 100 countries of students from that hail from 105 I think was the last number of countries that come to USC to obtain their their education their educational objectives and that's core to USC it's core to me and we want to protect all of that but but there are certain types of activities certain types of countries where for political reasons national security reasons the United States is assigned a good number of restrictions examples that may be familiar with you include countries like Syria Iran Iraq Cuba now that doesn't mean in those instances that nothing can be done but it is a higher level of scrutiny for activities that might involve countries or or individuals that are in those countries or based in those countries so we'll talk a little bit about that although I don't know how much direct impact that's going to have on what you do so it's kind of a foundational question what do we mean when we talk about export so there is the classic export which is I place something in a FedEx box and it's got a tangible item of some kind or another I put it in that box and I send it off to Paris or I send it off to Dubai or I send it off to wherever that activity constitutes an actual export and those are things that that we're doing a lot of work to understand how much of that kind of actual export activity happens at USC again not a huge area of focus but nevertheless is something that we would never want to be in a position of exporting something to another country where the government under the sets of regulations that I've talked to you about says well no you can't do that without it getting an explicit authorization or a license from the government before you do so the second bullet on this page I think is is the one that's most important for universities and that's this principle of deemed exports so deemed exports is this kind of fiction it doesn't make a lot of logical sense events but as you read the description perhaps it makes sense so if we have a national from Australia who is sitting at the table across from you and I would be in in one scenario exporting something to Australia and that would be considered something that's an export that's subject to the export regulations the concept of deemed export says my disclosure in the United States to that Australian National sitting across the table for me is considered to be an export to that country even though everything that's happening and all the disclosures that are happening are happening right here in the United States and universities as you might imagine particularly USC and others like us where we have literally thousands upon thousands of students and we depend on the open collaboration and the open sharing of research data and results Acro across are a student base regardless of their nationality that numerically speaking is something we really need to pay attention to so that we're not running into these deemed export issues and quite frankly all with the goal in mind that we're not going to allow for unless absolutely necessary any impacted kinds of collaboration regardless of nationality we are not in the business at USC and I'll make that very explicit of segregating our research opportunities to to designated people from various countries we want and will support the maximum extent possible open and free involvement in the research opportunities and the academic opportunities that exist at USC uh we can't do that in a vacuum we do need to keep in mind these regulations but I but as we'll we transition into some of the my later remarks I think you'll see that there are a lot of ways that we do that that are very helpful the final is this concept of a defense service so this is not just sort of uh transporting or disclosing a widget whatever it might be a piece of equipment it's the additional activity of providing a service it's saying okay here's the widget here's all the technical data that you need to operate it let me walk you through about the steps on how to construct it let me help you with testing its efficiency all of that is considered the provision of a service that's connected to the actual article that's controlled so the regulations don't just control the exports of items they control the export of technical know-how that helps somebody understand how to operate that item so those are kind of the the key key categories of you know what is considered to be an export so so these export regulations uh have many categories and they have many different areas where they uh a sign of good deal of scrutiny and I think one hopefully one uh will um perhaps stand out in this list to you but you know we talk about research conducted outside the United States research in areas that are certainly as you hopefully see are understandably of concern to our government research in certain sophisticated encryption technology chemical and biological weapons any interactions with blocked or sanctioned entities in other words countries that we have very limited if any interactions with and then here Research In Space nuclear technology or weapons of mass destruction and I know here space type research development of rockets and propellants and work that that touches on things that may get into that category is really when we talk about the overall scope of export regulations would be at least in my mind an area of focus I would want to have with the people in this room and the people in this department because that's really the subject matter that I think we need to pay a lot of attention to as it relates to what happens here what you see down here is your introduction to some of the what makes it all okay to be a university and not to have to worry about these things in the majority of instances there's an exclusion that's called the fundamental research exclusion we're going to spend some time getting into this in a moment there's another exclusion called public the public information to exclusion and then finally one called the educational information exclusion let me stop for a second when I say exclusion if an exclusion applies everything that I've talked to you about in terms of this might be export control it was done by a corporation and there was no educational objective or educational outcome they're not able to use those exclusions because they're not doing it for educational purposes they're doing it for a for-profit reason for example they're not disclosing their data freely into the open domain in the public domain they have no intention to they need to do things that way because that's their competitive advantage that's how they keep getting contracts that's how they make money it's how they satisfy their shareholders and so the government thankfully over time has acknowledged at least at some levels and many in our industry would argue they haven't gone quite far enough but has acknowledge that there's certain types of activity and as I think you'll see that applies to a real wide range of the activity that happens here where we don't necessarily have to worry about these issues and so I wanted to lay the groundwork for what these regulations cover but immediately introduce the concept that we have some really strong carve outs ways to protect what it is that happens for the people in this room and elsewhere within the School of Engineering so uh so I it's a very confusing and this is not something you're going to want to necessarily need to memorize it's just take a look and take it in and I think it's a reference tool there's two key sets of regulations in export controls it's what makes my job I guess makes me needed maybe um but uh that this isn't all just one set of rules that we can all look through and try to find what the right answer is there's two sets of rules on the left side you see the rules for from the Commerce our United States Commerce Department which is now called The Bureau of industry and security and Deals what they call with so-called dual use commercial items so let me give you an example of a dual use item a computer you know a computer be used for your general office work you know sending emails creating documents but many times that very same computer could end up being an item that controls how a particular let's say weapon system operates and so those types of dual use items are controlled under this set of regulations and the impact in being in this set of regulations is that the restrictions are much less onerous much less difficult the other category is the state Department's department and operated under the directorate of Defense trade controls they administer a set of regulations called the international traffic and arms regulations these regulations deal very directly with military items weapons armaments tanks planes Rockets rocket propellants um uh Things That Vary predominantly at least have a military application that does not mean that if you're doing work or developing things that that at certain specifications meet the definition of a rocket there's tons of for example Hobby rocketry and rocketry that will perhaps talk about in this conversation that that occurs within a university that does not meet those standards um and then finally and we really don't do much research here at USC on this uh well not quite finally we'll talk about the treasury Department but the department of energy really deals a lot with sort of nuclear technology nuclear fuel cycle equipment technical data and there is under doe Department of energy sponsorship many times Research into technology that may really relate or have an application that's related to nuclear technology finally we have this Treasury Department office of foreign assets control this is a little bit different from each of these different areas this is an economic set of regulations what this economic set of regulations says that there are certain countries it doesn't matter my personal opinion about whether it's appropriate that the countries and the locations that they choose but over time the Department of Treasury through its office of foreign assets control has said that there are certain countries in entities that are considered to be enemies of the United States geopolitical enemies or enemies may be a strong characterization and countries that we really need to for whatever reason sanction uh economic activity that happens by the United States individuals and entities in those countries countries that would be most familiar to you would be countries like Cuba Iran Syria the Sudan countries that wouldn't really surprise you regardless of whether you agree with these designations or lot or not wouldn't surprise you based upon things you read in the news and that you see that that there are certain countries where it's very difficult to do business and this is a big challenge here at a university like USC where we have many Iranian students we have many Iranian faculty a huge number perhaps the greatest number of any University in the country and travel to these countries in collaboration with researchers in those countries is common and that that creates a very a difficult issue that requires a lot of collaboration between our office and those faculty that do want to travel to Iran to make sure that they're following the rules when they do travel this does not impact does not impact our ability to have Iranian students apply for and be accepted to and attend our University we've made a lot of very strong arguments not just at USC but in the general community that there should be a very limited impact of this now I know you all have been following recent political developments in our country we've all heard about travel bans that have come out from the Trump Administration and my personal opinion thankfully those have been blocked for now it really does remain unclear eventually how what's going to happen there there could be one or more or certain components of those travel bans that are upheld from a legal perspective but do recognize when we talk about these restrictions the ones that have applied to Iran and many of these other countries predate the Trump Administration for quite some time for example we've had very very astringent sanction regimes as it relates to Cuba and to Iran and some of these other countries and so what we're trying to do is be mindful of how important it is the the Iranian population is at USC both from a student perspective and a faculty perspective and we're working very hard so there's a minimal impact here I would say this area is unfortunately going to end up being in a little bit of flex and flocks until we see kind of how things shake out with the Trump Administration it's really unclear at this point how that may play out so this is the over uh this is the overview of kind of the various regulations that apply to export controls and while I obviously we'd love to have you hold any questions just like professor gruntman said if at any point though I'm I'm raising Concepts that just see very seem very confusing on their on their face and you want some more uh clarification raise your hand and I'm happy to stop for a second and and let you know but um let's move on a little bit so I've talked about this so here's some examples of things that are controlled under the military regulations and I highlighted the first two because uh of of projects and activity that I know that happen at USC so controlled from a military perspective launch Vehicles missiles and Rockets military spacecraft spacecraft and uavs unmanned air vehicles we have a lot of drone research at USC for example that's happening right now uh some of the these other things I really don't believe are very common but you know military training and simulation articles military Electronics nav systems internal measurement units and then of course research with toxological agents you can see why this would be controlled from a national security perspective because we wouldn't want some of the more toxicological agents that are present in the United States to necessarily find their way abroad where they could be used they could be weaponized they could be used in a way that could cause real harm to sometimes millions of Americans so this is sort of the Gen General scope of the itar um these are these are the categories of the ear and and and as I noted these are the so-called dual use um items and so you know electronics and computers and Telecommunications all of these you know just on the face of it I think we all agree and understand that there's a mix of of potential military application as well as non-military application so that's the rough demarcation point between something controlled under the military regulations as a as opposed to controlled under these dual use or Commerce regulations um there's no question that you know as we look at Technologies at USC and where might this be classified that's not always easy as it may seem in space and avionics and and Rockets is one of those areas because there are very specific parameters that make something controlled other than the military uh regulations and so for example without getting into the details professor gruntman and I have been working together closely with a team here at USC to evaluate an effort that's happening right now and to determine where does it fall is it would it be something that would be subject to these regulations or others so it really is a k i want to emphasize it is a case-by-case kind of analysis so that's the scope of the regulations so here here's the impact right so the all these regulations like at its core what does it really mean well what it may do is restrict our ability to export Hardware software technology and services from the United States so for example research collaborations that may occur with foreign Labs that might involve the actual export of an item to a foreign lab that very much gets into even if it's a fundamental research project because you're actually exporting something from the United States to a foreign country that really may impact these regulations or call these regulations up as something that need to be considered um in restricted research projects and we'll explain what that means but it may impact ultimately our ability to include foreign National faculty and students and research within USC may impact our ability to collaborate with foreign researchers and institutions and um also to engage in in corporate and government-sponsored research projects that have some form of restriction and then ofac that that set of regulations that I talked about about certain countries with severe economic sanctions travel to certain of those countries is greatly impacted right now so by that I mean travel to Iran for example can be undertaken but there are many restrictions about what you can do when you travel to Iran the kinds of activity that you can undertake that are worthwhile that that were obligated to take into account and and I recognize well this is again a big challenge for USC because of the number of Iranian students and faculty we have here and then more at a more even basic level travel to certain countries that have some of these economic and trade restrictions this last point I think is worth worth noting you know many of the export control efforts that have been undertaken by the government as you might imagine over the years have been primarily focused upon our defense industry uh entities our boeings our raytheons our Northrop grummans because they have so much activity that happens around the world and they have they engage almost by definition in research related to Technologies that's probably that are oftentimes subject to these regulations well here you know at a university like USC we have such a broad base that you know when you're doing five and six hundred million dollars of sponsored research a year the vast majority of that you know if a significant amount of biomedical research and research within the humanities and and in you know our dornsife school that really doesn't touch on on any of this a lot of the burden um Falls within the School of Engineering because of the nature of what we're doing or you're doing so much of it is so applied and so much of it relates to technologies that in some fashion might be controlled I think the overall point is notwithstanding that there's a huge chunk of USC that really doesn't touch these issues so we're not like Boeing and we're not like Northrop Grumman we nevertheless do have these issues and we're seeing that U.S enforcement agencies are spending an additional amount of time in paying attention to to our compliance with these rules and these regulations um so let's get to some of the good so so far just that was a lot I know and there's going to be this is going to be available to you afterwards anything about how I kind of explain these regulations and kind of their separation that just didn't make sense on the face of it to you that you have any questions about okay I'll just assume I just did an outstanding job and now it's all completely clear to everybody but maybe not um so let's talk about the good news the good news is we have this this uh Safe Harbor that's been in the regulations for a long time it's called the fundamental research exclusion and basically says that information arising during or resulting from basic and applied research and Science and Engineering when the information is ordinarily published and shared broadly in the scientific Community is not subject to the export control regulations so the vast majority of what we do I would I would guess if I canvassed everybody around the room the intent when you're doing research particularly our grad students who have publication objectives is that we intend right from the get-go whether it's via a project that comes from a sponsor's money or that we're just initiating on our own with University funds or even without any funds the whole notion is we want to contribute to the General Store of knowledge in a big in a given area our intent is not to hold it as proprietary data that no one's ever going to learn about that we're going to go you know make patents on and and make a lot of money someone thought my presentation wasn't worthy of being interrupted um but this covers almost all research at USC and even here and we do a lot through our department of contracts and grants when we have sponsored research accounts just to make sure that really we're we're within this Safe Harbor again it really makes things a lot easier for us um so here's when it doesn't apply and this is what we fight a lot so we from sponsors will come to us and where the the the we if we could accept contract Clauses in the course of doing sponsored research that in some fashion for forbids or restricts the participation of foreign persons or gives the sponsor a right to approve or restrict publication in other words we can't just freely disclose this we've got to get an approval from a sponsor um that that restricts access to or or disclosure of research results or that allows for performance of the research outside the United States and again there's a there's a project that we're dealing with now Dr gretman's been very helpful on that that in some fashion may involve performance of research outside the United States brings us in this world of export controls because this exemption this fundamental research exemption only applies to research that happens in the United States so so you know it's very foreseeable that we have worldwide collaborators that we want to work with but many times if if key pieces of the research are not being done in the United States we don't have the same ability to say well that's fundamental and basic research I I grant you as you hear me talking not a lot of this makes intuitive sense you know a lot of this is just rules based it's just the rules the government have come up to Define what we need to be worried about and what we don't need to be quite as worried about so apologies if this this just sounds like a bunch of rules it is a bunch of rules that don't not necessarily always flow from each other in in a logical way but these are the really the kind of the the agreements we may make as a university as we as we conduct research particularly under sponsorship where in some fashion we're agreeing to say we're not going to share it into the public domain or we're only going to share it into the public domain if you tell us we can and oh by the way it's fine only United States citizens will be involved in the research that's very contrary to what a university does universities involve people regardless of nationality so um we won't spend some too much time here this is a nuanced point that I don't think really applies to you um so uh let's talk a little bit about what what red flags are the red flags that I'm going to talk about are things that that begin to give an indication that some of those things I just talked about in the prior slide might be present in a given research project or effort regardless of whether there's there's money coming into USC there's some form of collaboration let's say with some some entity or group outside of USC and then the the contractual restrictions on Personnel are publication so uh we do a lot in this context of sponsored research at USC to negotiate out restrictions whenever they exist we want to always protect our ability to share research results freely but if we accept those restrictions and we have a new policy on export controls that provides a mechanism to accept those restrictions that requires review of the project and the measures that will be put in place in order to comply with them if we choose to take on the project and those can include of course limiting foreign Nationals participation or going to the government and obtaining authorization before we do though do so implementing what are called technology control plans so many of the reasons why government and Industry sponsors attempt to restrict what we do is say well we're giving you very sensitive data that we don't want to have disclosed elsewhere that's why we need to review everything you're going to publish English because we want to make sure you haven't disclosed it and at the same time we believe it's so sensitive that only United States citizens are lawful permanent residents can see that information and so to the extent we ever do take on those projects we Implement plans called tcps technology control plans that attempt to memorialize those restrictions and ensure that we're complying with them and then through our office we kind of uh monitor compliance on an ongoing basis certainly if you ever become aware and I'm sure Dr grotman and other principal investigators within the the school in the department would make me aware but anytime we become aware just generally Through the Grapevine or in a specific contract that it that it looks like the sponsor or the data provider is telling you you can't do whatever it is you want with the output of This research that's a moment for all of us to stop and to reach out to the office of compliance because that's a real strong clue that they're not treating This research as fundamental research and we want to do everything we can to keep that characterization in place that we're doing fundamental research obviously we want to make sure that if we do accept any of these restrictions that we're complying with what what is in the contract not just as a matter of complying with agreements we've made with our sponsors but making sure that com that that we comply because if we don't we may in fact violate these export control regulations so here's another red flag and again this relates to a project that I'm working on with Dr grotman right now the receipt of proprietary or export Control Data from a sponsor from a third party via an NDA and non-disclosure agreement or an MTA a material transfer agreement what what how this plays out is is we may have a very fundamental research project where we are developing um you know a set of I really should just turn this off sorry um we are developing a set of an output and be it a a rocket a piece of software whatever it might be and in order to do that we are procuring equipment or technology or Hardware from a third party we're going to a company that has that a piece that we need to put into our um or whatever whatever it is we're building and it's very proprietary to that company they use it they sell it they didn't develop it doing fundamental research they did it in their RND lab and they're in their in their Labs they're not even publishing it out to the world they may tell the world this is what it does what they're not saying is this is how we got there and they sell and work with entities and groups that may need that widget that piece to integrate into something they're building and as it relates here to USC we want to be building something that's going to you know go out and let's say we fly up into the air and we want to publish all our research results and discuss how we got there how we integrated things that we got from third parties and how we change them to make them work through the app for the application we're using them for that kind of interaction there could be an overall intent to share into to the public domain but the key takeaway is that when we receive Information Technology Hardware software from a third-party company that's not a university that comes with some obligation to keep all of that confidential as we integrate it into things that we're building from a fundamental perspective we need to make sure we're complying with and not violating export regulations as to the underlying technologies that we're using to kind of bring together and make what it is we make I think in in in many instances this is the area that I work with our researchers the most because they have contracted fundamental research again no restrictions on publication or Personnel but as part of their budget and their wish list well I'm going to need to get this widget and this piece of software and this piece of technology from a from a company who has treated it in a very proprietary way and I'm going to take and I'm going to modify it in some way I'm going to modify it in a way that makes the rocket fly better I'm going to modify it in a way that's tailored to the fun fundamental research project that we have that's a moment where we really need to think about well what what does that look like and how are we doing that and by doing that and later on perhaps disclosing what we've done are we violating obligations we've taken on to those companies that have provided us that data so one takeaway I would say to you all is I think you know and we'll get back to the big takeaways at the end but I think you know clearly a huge takeaway is is that when you're doing fundamental research at USC when when the intent is we're going to share what we're doing into the public domain you have a big Safe Harbor in other words you have the ability to feel good that what you're doing is not export controlled you are at a university there are expectations on on many of you in this room to publish on what it is you're learning your degree objectives in many instances depend upon that and we will do everything we can to protect that here at USC but to the extent the experiments that you're doing involve relying upon some of that restricted data it's worth a consideration of whether there are export control considerations so um you know when those instances arise and it's uh and I keep returning to the example but Professor Grumman and I are working together right now with him and some of his colleagues about an instance it's very much like this that it's a fundamental project that involves an output and a lot of work by students of of different nationalities but at the same time involves the provision of items from a foreign collaborator that in themselves may be subject to export controls and that integration between what we're getting that's subject to export controls and what we want to create that's a basic fundamental research output is one where we really need to navigate carefully um and we are we will but uh but that requires some careful analysis so um the um the this gets a little bit yeah okay I'll go over this a little bit quickly but but the overall um um Point here is when we aren't taking a piece of proprietary software and in and and we are developing this via a prototype or or software development a piece of software that will teach basically somebody how to develop produce or use what it is the software is designed to create in a fundamental research project that's just fine but when we relate it back to the one of the red flags I I was talking about before if we're we're doing that through the receipt of of information that itself is subject to some form of restriction we need to kind of carefully think that think it through and make sure that what we disclose around these issues is really the fundamental research component that we have and that we appropriately treat the data that we receive that's restricted in some fashion um so as now this is a slide nobody can ever read so um but this is really embodies what I'm saying you know it says again fre stands for fundamental research and it provides this important Safe Harbor if you're conducting fundamental research that gives rise to a prototype I mean how common is that that happens all the time information you develop around how you develop produce or use that software software source code is not export control but this is the key second point that I keep talking about if however you are using third-party technology or items as tools to conduct your research and one of your outputs may be a prototype these items do not arise or result from your fundamental research if you are provided technology regarding these issues this information is subject to export controls even though your research output is fundamental so again one takeaway key takeaway you're getting restricted proprietary data from a third party that you need to in some fashion integrate into things that you're doing as part of a fundamental research project that's a moment to stop and think well exactly what is it that I'm doing to integrate how much of the design data for example do I need a schematic of whatever it is I'm receiving an am I somehow modifying that so that it integrates with this brand new thing that I've thought about that our team is working on that we want to tell the world about we needed to create those dividing lines that were not inappropriately disclosing things that the provider has said no this is proprietary this is not something that came out of fundamental research while at the same time protecting our ability to share the these items freely so um key takeaway here is if you are developing a prototype your intent should always be to share it broadly into the public domain on your fundamental research projects and again I believe that covers almost all of what we do here if you obtain items components or software from third parties that you're using as tools or components of a prototype and you're going to receive data about those tools that comprises development production or use data and that data means how do you make the widget what do you do how is it produced how is it used then um that that day or software source code then contacting the office of compliance working with us to make sure we're creating these clear dividing lines I think is a really important step and will keep us on the right side of these export regulations um so this is like this kind of a a diagram that I like from time to time because um what this shows is so set aside what's on the side here it talks about a fundamental research project that's got a prototype as one output and in the course of doing that prototype you develop development production or use data by development I mean design data you come up with schematics and and and other design data that say how to develop it how to produce and how to use what it is you're creating all of that is protected by the fundamental research exemption so long as you intend to share all that into the public domain because it's all coming up in the course of fundamental research that you're doing here at USC but and here's what's on the outside it's when you're provided software or Hardware that you're told as proprietary it's come from industry it's not something that's in the public domain and you need these pieces to create the Prototype that you're creating the Prototype that you create is still within the public domain but in that prototype what's disclosed needs to be mindful of all of the things that are received on the input side so that we're not inadvertently disclosing some I don't know let's use a Intel Hardware or software that they have treated very closely as this is our business proprietary stuff so it's a matter of focus it's a matter of saying no one's telling you your fundamental research projects with with prototypes is output cannot be disclosed it's just being mindful of what comprises that fundamental research output and keeping in mind the obligations we take on to third parties they may provide us things up to to restrict that kind of data appropriately so another area is uh equipment sort of that raises concerns are certain uses of equipment to perform research so um uh we get a lot of High um high risk equipment here at USC by high risk equipment I mean things like our high performance Computing Center which many of you may be aware about medical lasers and Laser Technology avionics uh GPS things that because of their capabilities in a military sense are treated in a very restricted way and so I've worked for example this is going to be an interesting example for you so I've worked in our department of Ophthalmology I've worked with a researcher in recent years who is buying a Bradley night vision goggles well why would somebody from Ophthalmology really care about that and I'll tell you why there's light sensing technology in those night vision goggles that has another use it has a use in addressing people who are vision impaired in improving their ability to detect light and improves their outcomes on on their ability to see and it's a real Cutting Edge area Dr Mark humayun whose name you may or not may not have heard of before very prominent researcher on our Health Sciences Campus this is one of his key areas of research the challenge becomes working with him when he gets a Bradley pair of night vision goggles that wasn't developed during fundamental research that's that's that's a militarily developed technology and he takes it apart and he finds the part of it that's got the light detection technology he likes takes it I'm no scientist so bear with me takes it out basically and then integrates it into something he's using for a completely other purpose has nothing to do with seeing people at night in a battlefield environment he's using it to help people who are blind or vision impaired see better but we need to and we work with him closely to understand how it is he's using that vision technology that he gets is he in fact you know using the hardware the software the the technical data that that describes how to build the night vision goggle in a way that he's inadvertently when he has a publication about some of the vision research he's doing disclosing proprietary export restricted information from these companies that provide him this kinds of equipment so high risk equipment is something we also look like look at and that does create a red flag so these are examples of some of the more restricted types of of uh of of equipment you see here uavs and satellites drones which I know you're all familiar with you've probably seen some of them flying around recently over the Village um but inertial measurement units infrared cameras night vision equipment high performance computers chemical and biological agents each of these even when used for fundamental research purposes do raise additional scrutiny because they are specifically called out in the regulations as items that are controlled under them so this is another one and again I'll point to a collaboration I have with with Dr grotman right now all of what I'm talking about the fundamental research exemption only applies to information or rising out of research performed in the United States it does not apply to any actual export so my pair of well my iPhone you know if I take an iPhone and I put it in my pocket and I get it on a plane and the plane flies out of the United States airspace while I'm sitting on it I've just exported an iPhone so thankfully your iPhone your watch much of the stuff in this room is really not subject is subject to the export regulations but there is no uh export uh obligation but you can very easily see in a collaboration with the foreign lab where what's being done in the United States would clearly be fundamental research but the moment there's an there's an export that may go to another country now we're under these actual export regulations and we need to think about it uh carefully we will induce support any necessary licenses or authorizations um so uh please keep in mind that as you think about International collaborations with labs in Japan with labs in other countries that some of these assumptions that we've got about what we can do within the confines of USC do not apply in certain instances to foreign collaborations so that's sort of another area another red flag finally international travel I don't really know how frequently international travel is a part of what you all do but you know when we talk about international travel um you know there there are safety and other considerations that apply when you travel internationally I think again we'll go over this quickly because I don't know how really con this is a very researcher-centric type of recommendation because we do have so much international travel with our researchers but that require consideration some of the factors that you see here because depending upon where you're going and what you're taking with you there may be more or less restrictions the next slide gets into that in a more granular sense the policy that I referred to that is our recent export controls and international collaborations policy gives some good recommendations about what it is that's worthwhile to keep in mind when you do undertake international travel but that's just another red flag area for you all to keep in mind um let me see um so uh the other thing is is that many times we have foreign National visits collaborations and sales um I I think that you know we we want to encourage those visits we want to encourage our research collaborators from Japan from from South Korea from India from China coming to the United States to see what we're doing to work together um but uh one thing we seek to do particularly if there's a formal arrangement to do that is to make sure that they're authorized to be in this country there are a variety of of screening uh tools that exist that the government puts out that says basically here's the ways you verify and and make sure that um the partners you're dealing with are in fact authorized to be uh in this country so rather than you of course having to do any of this but foreign collaborations whether they involve an actual trip to that foreign country or not I think are a moment to stop and to reach out to the office of compliance for guidance um so uh this is really something that you can just take away with you but this is really what I do you know this is what I do it's kind of a condensed summary of what I do but these are the steps that I take and lead in our office to make sure that we're following all of these uh these various regulations and we it involves monitoring and identifying and assisting in education to groups like yourself and others about what our obligations are and then behind the scenes after I've done so making sure I'm staying aware of these projects and then monitoring them to make sure that we're complying with the restrictions um so so that's really my presentation what I want to emphasize you know key points and key takeaways right that was a lot that was really a lot every time I give this presentation I always say this is really a lot I'm not expecting any of you to memorize or or to uh have any of this just embedded in you now I think the key takeaways I would hope that you take from this is the vast majority of work that you do here at USC is protected by the fundamental research exclusion you can work on your what you do freely and your output is protected freely but as you get more creative with your collaborations particularly with foreign collaborators that that might involve actual exports and transfers of Hardware or software that's a moment to stop and think the other thing is is that and you want to make sure that as you undertake your research project that you go into it with the intent whether it comes from a sponsored research project that you're assisting a faculty member with or just an internal program at USC that is sponsoring its students or or supporting its students and undertaking these activities that sort of Paramount right from the start is that you're going to share the output of your research freely this is going to support PhD and graduate level on Publications and if we can get to that point and I think we're already there but if we can continue to reinforce that point I think the overall impact of of many of much of this is very muted and and not significant where I what I'm seeing however in working closely with Dr gruntman and others is that um you know there's understandably internationalization and international activity is a very key effort here at USC as we begin to be get more and more involved involved with foreign entities and foreign collaborators at universities and other locations that's always a moment to kind of step back and and enlist our office so that we can review those types of activities and and make sure that we're staying on the right side of these regulations and in a sort of final takeaway and then I'll and I'll break and I think I'm doing okay with time hopefully um is that um you know there there is um um a uh uh uh gosh I think I lost track of my point you have to forgive me um yeah so again again just to returning to enlisting your faculty and listing the office of compliance when you have these collaborations actual exports of items abroad to protect what you're doing oh and here's my final point there are sets of space regulations there are sets of space there are regulations about Rockets there are regulations about propellants there are regulations about satellites and all of them there's been some relaxation in recent years where many things it used to be for example satellites of any kind weather satellites were considered by virtue of their technology to all be subject to the itar all subjects they're all it's all military and there was a recognition under the Obama Administration and and some export reform that he was doing to say well that's not really that's an Overkill that's not really the way it is there are many saddle there's much satellite technology rocket technology that fires these satellites up that we believe really doesn't have a military application um but I I was going to print some of that and distribute it to you and I'm happy to do that afterwards there has been some beneficial changes to those regulations in recent years they're still very very detailed the the military regulations are uh very very uh prescriptive and detailed and then there's also a set of regulations that apply to what's considered more commercial things that are not treated quite as in of a in as restricted of a fashion as those as those military um um applications of those Technologies so um again that was a lot um I was hoping and maybe Dr grotman you can um perhaps lead some of the conversation here a little bit but I just wanted to get a general sense if I could of you know if any of this resonated what kinds of projects you're working on is it usually that you're doing things in a fundamental research capacity or what are perhaps some of the scenarios that may raise some concerns or worries that you'd like to talk about try to encourage you to ask as much as you want and also either or regulation related questions if you have but to start you use the term U.S persons could you explain what it is because many people sure confusion about that and then I shut up and you guys yeah so U.S person under the export regulations is considered to be a citizen or a lawful permanent president though that that's a U.S person um and uh I know many of our students perhaps some of you in this room and it's not important for me to know um but those who come in under a Visa are considered to be foreign Nationals but while because they're not lawful permanent residents but um the uh again we use this fundamental research exemption to say it really doesn't matter as long as they're lawfully in the United States they can participate in all of these projects so long as it's a fundamental research project