Former Ohio State Professor and Distinguished University Scholar, C.K. Shum’s Nobel Peace Prize Plaque is displayed outside of the 18th Avenue Library. Credit: Olivia Rinaldi | Editor in Chief
Ohio State agreed to pay $2.1 million to settle a federal civil complaint that it failed to disclose a university professor’s ties to China in connection with federally funded research for nearly a decade, the U.S. Department of Justice announced on Monday.
The settlement stems from allegations that Ohio State did not reveal former earth science professor and Nobel Peace Prize contributor C.K. Shum’s connection to China and participation in the country’s Thousand Talents Program – an initiative designed to recruit scientists and researchers with valuable knowledge and access – while he received funding from NASA and the National Science Foundation from November 2012 to August 2023.
“Specifically, the settlement resolves allegations that since 2014, annual Faculty Activity Reports submitted to OSU identified affiliations with [People’s Republic of China] universities and state-run research organizations, but OSU did not disclose this information to NASA or NSF,” the Justice Department press release stated.
The DOJ claimed that Ohio State found out about Shum’s involvement with the Thousand Talents Program in 2019, but did not disclose this to NASA or National Science Foundation until 2023, breaching the grant application’s requirement to reveal any foreign government affiliations.
“The university suspended Shum’s principal investigator privileges, halted spending on the relevant federal awards, initiated disciplinary proceedings and repaid the federal grant funds in question,” Ben Johnson, a university spokesperson, said. “Shum is no longer employed at Ohio State, and the university has cooperated with federal authorities throughout the investigation.”
The Lantern also reached out to the Dean of Natural and Mathematical Sciences but did not receive a response in time for publication.
Though no longer with the university, Shum’s contributions to the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize are honored in a plaque outside the 18th Avenue Library on Woodruff Avenue. where plaques from other Nobel laureates are also on display.
The 2007 Nobel Peace Prize was awarded to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change and former Vice President Al Gore to honor their efforts to establish and share knowledge about man-made climate change.
Shum was a lead author of the panel’s assessment report on oceanic climate change and sea levels with his research advancing understanding about the climate crisis, according to a web archive of his curriculum vitae, which is now no longer available on the School of Earth Sciences website.
The settlement agreement is not an admission of liability by the university or an acknowledgment by the United States that its claims lacked merit, the agreement stated.
“We will continue to hold accountable any university that fails to comply with disclosure requirements designed to protect research security and federally-funded scientific achievements,” Assistant Attorney General Brett A. Shumate of the Justice Department’s Civil Division said in the press release.
Johnson said that national security is a priority for Ohio State and the university promotes secure research.
“Safeguards include dedicated research compliance and secure research offices, mandatory conflict-of-interest and research security disclosure systems and robust security and foreign influence training programs,” Johnson said.
