Dive Brief:

• The University of California has agreed to pay $499,700 to two federal agencies to settle civil charges that UC-Davis used false and misleading statements to win grant money from the agencies to fund the same projects.
• The two grants in question were $1.1 million from the U.S. Department of Energy and $100,000 from the National Science Foundation, the San Jose Mercury News reported.
• The inspector general of the Department of Energy said the penalty should help deter similar misconduct in the future.

Dive Insight:

The university didn’t admit to wrongdoing with the settlement, and judging from statements from UC-Davis, it wasn’t exactly chagrined by the punishment. A UC-Davis spokesman said that the university argued there was no overlap between the two grants, the government argued otherwise and the university settled to avoid a federal lawsuit. Also, the school wanted to resolve the issue to let the researcher continue working. The work is in the field of material science. The university also agreed to train student-researchers on proper reporting for federal grants.