Recommended Principles to Guide Academy-Industry Relationships

Summary of Recommendations

1 Summary of Recommendations 56 Principles to Guide Academy-Industry Engagement T he American Association of University Professors (AAUP) has drafted these principles to encourage universities and their faculties to adopt stronger,more comprehensive rules to guide sponsored research on campus and to manage individual and institutional conflicts of interest more effectively.In issuing this report,the AAUP seeks to ensure that the standards and practices it recommends are consistently applied across the university as a whole.The report contains 56 recommended principles.A majority (35) are closely drawn from previous statements issued by theAAUP or other prominent academic societies and associations (such as the Institute of Medicine, the Association of American Universities, and the Association of American Medical Colleges).The remainder are either adapted from these other associations or are new recommendations that the AAUP is issuing for the first time. (Appendix B identifies which recommendations fall into each category, along with specific sources.) The AAUP seeks to promote deeper awareness of how commercial relationships —though often highly beneficial—may have far-reaching consequences for the university, its missions, and its constituents (students, faculty, colleagues,patients,the public) as well as for the academic profession (in areas ranging from research integrity and reliability to knowledge sharing, public health, and public trust).Although the report focuses primarily on academyindustry relationships, it addresses government- and nonprofit-sponsored research when related and appropriate. Because students, graduate assistants, 2 SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS postdoctoral fellows, and academic professionals often work on sponsored research, the report also addresses their working conditions. For these 56 principles to be effective, academic senates or comparable faculty governing bodies will need to review them,adapt them as appropriate, and then recommend their adoption in faculty handbooks, university policy statements, faculty guidelines, or collective bargaining contracts. (Appendix A contains specific suggested policy language that faculty and administrators may employ or adapt in their own written policies and guidelines.) Faculty bodies will benefit from working cooperatively, whenever possible, with knowledgeable university administrators to formulate clearer campus guidelines and protocols. Many administrators will be equally interested in developing clear campus guidelines that will provide greater clarity in negotiating agreements with potential sponsors. contents: The 56 principles recommended by the AAUP fall into two broad categories: GENERAL PRINCIPLES, which may be applied university-wide, that cover core academic norms and standards, such as authenticity of authorship, publication rights, and academic autonomy; they also address broad areas of academy-industry engagement, such as student education and training, financial conflicts of interest, and intellectual property management, and TARGETED PRINCIPLES that address specific types of academyindustry engagement,including strategic corporate alliances (SCAs), industry-sponsored clinical trials,and academy-industry interactions at academic medical centers. Many of the principles that the AAUP recommends in this report apply to the university generally, not just to sponsored research. A faculty body reviewing these principles might begin by making certain that all relevant campus documents incorporate the fundamental positions on shared governance and academic freedom embodied in Principles 1 and 2; the reinforcement of academic publication and research and data rights in Principles 3 and 5; the protections for recruiting, impartial academic evaluation, and access to grievance procedures in Principles 8–10; the basic intellectual property guarantees in Principles 11–13; and the commitment to conflict of interest disclosure in Principle 22. Reaching consensus about these opening principles will inevitably trigger a continuing discussion of others. At many institutions, adoption of the full set of intellectual property principles, numbers 11–21—principles that should cover all intellectual SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS 3 property, not just IP generated by industry-sponsored research—would represent a significant change in recent campus culture. Indeed as universities and their campus administrations become increasingly interested in claiming the rights to faculty IP, the benefit of installing these principles in faculty handbooks and collective bargaining contracts is clear.The goal should be to include appropriate language in both institutional policy guidelines and in all university contracts for funded research. Similarly, a comprehensive campuswide set of conflict of interest (COI) policies will require consideration of the entire COI subsection, numbers 22–31.Given that sponsored research and paid consultancies occur at all types of academic institutions, reviewing each institution’s existing COI policy statements and regulations—or establishing them, if none exist—should be a high priority.At the same time, Principles 36–47 are salient only for institutions that already have, or contemplate establishing, the...