A bill to amend the Research and Development, Competition, and Innovation Act to require each institution of higher education to certify as part of an application for a research and development award that such institution does not operate certain branch campuses, and for other purposes.
Key claim: Senate bill S4423 would require each institution of higher education to certify, when applying for a federal R&D award, that it does not operate certain branch campuses.
Abstract
(S4423 · 119th Congress) Latest action (2026-04-28): Read twice and referred to the Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation.
Why this matters
The bill would make an institution’s foreign branch-campus footprint a gating factor for federal R&D funding, extending the trend of tying research grants to national-security-oriented eligibility certifications rather than to research merit alone. If enacted, universities with covered overseas campuses would face a choice between those operations and continued access to federal R&D awards, and grant administrators would need new certification and compliance infrastructure.