Research Policies and Procedures

Research Policies

POLICY ON FACULTY MEMBERS RESPONSIBILITIES-CONFLICT OF INTEREST

A faculty member shall have a primary responsibility of devoting their time, thought, and energy to service of the University. Of no less importance is a faculty member's responsibility to further his or her own professional development and the goals of his or her professional discipline. Normally a faculty member's participation in activities of governmental, industrial, and professional institutions is consistent with academic interests of the University and the faculty member.

It is a conflict for AUB faculty or staff to accept research sponsorship from a company in which they have a significant financial interest. The conflict arises because the outcome of the research could materially affect the personal wealth of the researcher or an immediate family member. This policy should not prevent an investigator from receiving research support from a large publicly held company just because the researcher or a family member owns some shares in the company.

Conflicts of interest may occur when there is a divergence between a faculty member's private interests and professional service to the University. Conflicts of interest differ in nature and degree. The goal of any institution cannot be to eliminate all conflicts of interest. Rather it should be to establish boundaries within which conflicts of interest are tolerable and beyond which they are intolerable; processes for review of actual and apparent conflicts of interest; and appropriate mechanisms for management of tolerable conflicts of interest. These are:

1. The limit for consultation for full-time faculty members is one-day-a-week during the fall and the spring semesters and 5 days total during the summer semester.

2. No use of human and material resources of the University for non-University purposes is allowed (for example, when a faculty member inappropriately uses University equipment, supplies, personnel, and other facilities and resources for activities that yield financial benefit to the faculty member; or receives outside financial incentives that distort scholarly activity or the shaping of academic goals).

3. The faculty member's extra-University financial involvement must not affect, or reasonably appear to have a significant potential to affect, his or her academic responsibilities, or compromise basic scholarly activity or freedom of action (for example, when a faculty member hires a family member; or enters into an agreement to limit or delay the free publication, or access to the results, of sponsored research, other than according to normal University practice.

4. The University must not be deprived of appropriate potential financial gain (for example, when a faculty member inappropriately seeks to obtain research support in a manner that substantially undermines responsibilities of the Office of Grants and Contracts; or has an outside commitment that provides an individual or organization, other than the University, intellectual or tangible property rights, such as patent ownership or license rights, that ought to accrue to the University).

5. Faculty members are provided a mechanism to report and seek guidance concerning significant actual, potential, and apparent conflicts of interest, thus to ensure appropriate disclosure and that the interests of the faculty member and the University are well served.

6. Each Faculty shall administer a procedure for annual faculty disclosure of reportable actual, potential, and apparent conflicts of interest; disclosure by faculty of information pertinent to such conflicts; and a procedure for review and resolution of any lack of agreement arising from disclosure of such conflicts.