UMD to pay $500,000 over claims of false grant proposals

The University of Maryland, College Park, will pay $500,000 to the federal government, after three university researchers got grants without disclosing that they also got money from major Chinese companies, including retail giant Alibaba.

The Justice Department notes that the claims against UMD are only allegations, and there's been no determination of liability.

The three researchers got grants from the National Science Foundation and the Army.

About 25 percent of all federal funding for basic research at the nation's colleges and universities comes from the National Science Foundation.

U.S. Attorney for the District of Maryland Erek L. Barron said in a statement:

Complete and accurate disclosures are essential to federal agencies that make decisions on awarding federal grants. Those individuals and universities that knowingly fail to do so skew the grant awarding process in their favor and will be held accountable.

UMD was charged with violating the False Claims Act by failing to disclose support from foreign sources for faculty members who sought federal research grants.

The case dealt with five grant proposals. The university allegedly failed to disclose that researchers got funding from Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., and from Alibaba (Taobao Software Co., Ltd.).

The research was for topics including electrode materials, and for “Large-Scale Behavior Learning for Dense Crowds”, and “Cyber-Manufacturing of Customized Apparel.”