Table 1 Ethical principles and benchmarks for ethically credible partnerships between ahcs and industry
Principles | Benchmarks |
|---|---|
Academic freedom | 1. Promote investigator-initiated science and protect the ability to attract and maintain federal research support |
2. Permit investigators to initiate or continue collaboration with any other qualified group, person, or entity | |
3. Ensure that all investigators involved in the partnership are given equal opportunity to submit proposals for funding | |
4. Avoid obligating faculty to work outside their own self-defined scientific area | |
Conflict of interest policy and management | 5. Protect students, post-doctoral fellows and junior faculty involved in collaborative projects from exploitation 6. Ensure that effective mechanisms exist to eliminate, control or manage conflicts of interest in the partnership |
Intellectual property | 7. Ensure all investigators and both partners retain their proprietary and intellectual property rights throughout and after the partnership |
Data sharing, access | 8. Ensure that data sharing arrangements are explicit and that all rights to access data are fairly negotiated at the outset of the partnership |
Effective governance | 9. Establish parameters for what type of projects will and will not be funded (e.g. add-on projects, training, pilot studies) |
10. Create ways to protect each party from an unexpected end to the partnership | |
11. Assess formally the efficiency, effectiveness, and achievements of the partnership on an annual basis | |
12. Ensure that clear, comprehensive, and efficient procedures exist for all governance entities of the partnership and are known to all investigators | |
Protection of human subjects | 13. Ensure that all investigators, staff and other participants in the partnership have adequate training in the responsible conduct of research and related ethical issues 14. Ensure that all projects in the partnership aim to satisfy the highest ethical standards |
Publication | 15. Ensure the right of all researchers associated with the partnership to publish |
16. Disseminate all research results at the conclusion of collaborative studies in a timely fashion | |
17. Ensure authorship follows ICMJE guidelines | |
Social, scientific, and industrial value | 18. Maintain competitive advantage in the specified research domains 19. Structure the research to maximize potential benefit for communities and society |
20. Structure the partnership to have the best chance of benefiting both partners and harming neither | |
Transparency | 21. Widely publicize the partnership agreement and collaborative opportunities to the public and employees |
22. Establish procedures for frequent and effective communication between partners | |
23. Ensure both partners are aware of other partnerships each may be involved in |