University scientists are encouraged to share their expertise with industry through consulting, speaking, or other arrangements; to collaborate with industry in product development; and to form their own companies.
This emphasis on encouraging academic scientists to work with industry has been an unparalleled success in speeding discoveries from the laboratory to the marketplace. However, the broader opportunity and role for the academic community has also led to challenges. Such academic-industry collaboration should never compromise the safety of people volunteering to participate in biomedical research or scientific integrity.
To address these issues, universities must develop and implement policies that enable them to review and manage the relationships between faculty members' institutional responsibilities and their outside, industry-related activities. Universities and faculty must never act in ways that compromise the public’s trust.
The Association of American Universities (AAU) established the Task Force on Research Accountability in response to concerns that individual conflict of interest processes were not always achieving the highest standards, and that institutional conflict of interest policies had rarely been develop