Introductory Memo

I. Academic integrity and sponsored research: an overview

Industry sponsorship of research at today’s universities offers opportunities for universities to further their research and teaching missions, and to develop knowledge that is in demand and socially useful. Like federal and other governmental funding for research, and also like partnerships with other non-profits such as museums, foundations, and libraries, partnerships with industry reflect university interest in new sources of funding and new forms of knowledge-sharing and community contact. Moreover, universities attract creative and entrepreneurial faculty who look to industry as a partner in developing and marketing new ideas.

As industry sponsorship has expanded, however, it has become well-understood that such sponsorships make it essential for universities to articulate their underlying principles of academic integrity and apply those principles pro-actively so that moral lapses, and the scandals that sometimes accompany them, are averted. Stating and applying these principles in a responsible and forward-looking way is a task for all members of the university community working together. The issues are both real and difficult; they challenge the university intellectually because there are no simple solutions, and institutionally because taking responsibility is a task that cannot be delegated to a few experts, whether they be lawyers, compliance officers, or trained ethicists.

It may be useful to situate the issues briefly in the wider context of research ethics. University standards governing human subjects research, for example, are necessary (and sometimes controversial) whether the research is funded by tuition dollars, endowment, federal or other governmental agencies, or by industry. Similarly, regardless of who pays for research, both the research process and ensuing publication must honor existing intellectual property rights. Navigating among these property rights and other rights and interests may be rendered more complex and difficult, however, depending on the source of funding. Still, to get traction on the problem of academic integrity and sponsored research, it is worth stressing that moral questions arose in research before the advent of substantial industry sponsorship of university research, and will continue to arise even as we meet the special challenges such sponsorship creates.

It may also be useful to note that conditions attaching to research funds may be problematic, whether the funding source is a donor, government, or industry. Conditions requiring pre-publication delay or clearance, or permitting the funding source to decide which faculty members a university hires, promotes, or tenures, are familiar examples. Such problems aren’t unique to industry-sponsored university research, though they may be exacerbated or presented in new and challenging ways.

Federal funding for research gives rise to special issues that deserve separate attention. Two things, however, are worth noting. First, sometimes moral questions are comparative in form, inviting us to ask, “What source of funding for important and (potentially) socially useful research is least problematic?” In other words, industry funding for research can be evaluated in comparison with the alternatives. Second, though Congress may attach conditions when it is acting pursuant to its spending power, both the federal government and state and local governments enjoy substantial regulatory power that can be applied directly – that is, unconditionally. If the federal government, for example, wants to bar universities from allowing foreign nationals from certain countries to participate in certain forms of research, or from entering into research partnerships with institutions in certain countries, it probably has constitutional authority to do so directly, and not only as a condition on the receipt of federal research dollars. This again illustrates the proposition that problems created by the source of funding are not the only problems worth thinking about.

Though such problems are sometimes described interchangeably as questions of “research ethics” or “academic integrity and research,” it should be stressed that these phrases are of uncertain and contested meaning; and it is not clear whether they are synonymous. Both “ethics” and “academic integrity” are normative frameworks; they specify what ought to be done. But the former is more inclusive, and we can assume that there are actions we ought not perform, at universities, because they are wrong, even though they do not contradict or undermine academic integrity. We can assume that “academic integrity” is not necessarily the same as “academic independence” – that an agreement that the university unit or researcher enters into with an external partner does not subvert or violate integrity just because it is an exercise of present freedom that restricts future options. In other words, the question of which partnering agreements integrity permits is open. Finally, we can assume that while full compliance with applicable laws is ordinarily required, in a democratic country, by ethics and academic integrity (“ordinarily” because civil disobedience may be justifiable under some circumstances), such compliance may not always be enough. The “Code of Ethics of the University of Southern California” provides:

We are careful to distinguish between legal behavior on the one hand and ethical behavior on the other, knowing that, while the two overlap in many areas, they are at bottom quite distinct from each other. While we follow legal requirements, we must never lose sight of ethical considerations.

In that spirit, our aim is not just legal compliance but learning about and reflecting on industry-sponsored research in such a way as to prepare ourselves and our university to make the best choices we can.

II. Some shared goals

A. Producing sound research. It is unconscionable to publish research that one knows to be erroneous or seriously misleading. Researcher bias caused by conflicts of interest or commitment can be one source (though it is clearly not the only source) of doing so. In the extreme case, if the university researcher holds an equity stake in the firm that is sponsoring research into, say, the efficacy and safety of a test pharmaceutical, conscious or unconscious bias may cause the research to overstate efficacy or understate side effects. But such bias can also be caused by other motives and interests. A researcher may publish erroneous or seriously misleading research because it advances his or her political agenda or because he or she estimates (rightly or not) that the research will increase personal fame. Moreover, we often find ourselves in a position in which we are circulating, if not actually publishing, research about which we have real reservations, even though we do not know it to be false or misleading. In that sense, the incentive effects of industry-sponsored university research belong to the larger question of how incentive systems in the modern research university can best lead us to internalize the values of research validity. Each of us can attest to the difficulty of determining the point, on the path from initial speculation to unattainable certainty, at which our research is ready for circulation and publication.

B. Averting social costs of unsound research. Publishing work one knows or has good reason to believe is unsound not only subverts the intrinsic value of academic integrity but imposes social costs. In the pharmaceutical case, if the false or misleading research leads to approval and use of the medication in question, health may be jeopardized. This undesirable effect may not occur if there is a perfect market in information – if there are equal and opposite interests animating publication of research that reaches different conclusions, and if the ultimate users of the information can rather easily sort out the rival results and reach their own independent conclusions. But these conditions do not always obtain. Neutral experts who referee submissions to peer-reviewed scholarly journals can discount claims, or look harder at methods, when the work submitted for publication discloses a funding source or equity stake that is thought to increase the risk of bias. There is empirical evidence, however, that there is substantial under-disclosure to journals, even to those which have explicit disclosure policies. Of course, the reader or ultimate user of the published research can still search for methodological and other flaws, but is deprived of useful information. A university can set its own policy on disclosure upon submission and publication, though it cannot enforce such a policy unless it is aware of its own researchers’ sponsorships or other affiliations.

C. Supporting the “commons” or infrastructure for further research. Ideally, in pursuing and testing one’s own theories and hypotheses, a researcher not only advances his or her own scholarly interests and career, but enriches the common fund of methodological and substantive knowledge on which future scholarship will draw. So each of us, whether intentionally or not, enriches the intellectual “commons.” But there is some evidence that as a side-effect of federal law, universities and their researchers are entering into intellectual property agreements with industry sponsors that effectively “lock up” methods and procedures, creating what has been called an “anti-commons.” If this is indeed happening, it becomes important to adjust rules so that incentives to generate new knowledge do not have the perverse effect of slowing the rate of discovery. This is one respect in which the quest for integrity in sponsored research intersects with other reasons for care in allocation of intellectual property rights in university research and its products.

D. Maintaining a healthy balance of scholarly disciplines in the university, and a healthy balance of research and teaching. Some critics of industry-sponsored research argue that in the rush to obtain such funds, universities are worsening the imbalance between fields and disciplines that have or are seen to have immediate market payoff and those, like some traditional humanities subjects, seen as worthwhile in other ways less measurable in the marketplace. But the extent of this effect is unclear, and the standards for defining balance and imbalance are elusive. It is sometimes said that by obtaining industry funds for research, universities are to some extent freeing up other revenue sources to be used for other purposes, including support for liberal arts and humanities research and education. And while there have been long-term declines in, for example, the percentage of undergraduates majoring in certain liberal arts or humanities fields, and corresponding increases in the percentages of those majoring in subjects seen as having greater immediate market value, it isn’t clear how significantly industry-sponsored research has contributed to these trends. Finally, it is unclear in what ways, or in what respects, such sponsorship affects the balance of teaching and research. Grants of many kinds, not just industry partnerships, sometimes enable faculty to buy out some of their teaching time. Moreover, grants that support construction of laboratories and the purchase of equipment make possible kinds of education and student involvement that would be unavailable in their absence.

E. Avoiding scandal and the appearance of impropriety. Research universities depend greatly on public goodwill. Parents decide which schools can be entrusted with their children’s education, which includes the continuing development of character. Donors may want control or influence (and be disappointed when they do not get it), but they also do not want the recipients of their largesse to be blasted on the front pages of the newspapers. Government agencies administering public research funds have good reason to hesitate before awarding grants to universities that are seen as poor stewards of the public interest. A university owes it to its stakeholders to avoid the appearance of being bought off by the highest corporate bidders. But a university that is pro-active in setting ground rules for its research activities should not be so deterred by the prospect of unmerited publicity that it cannot pursue effective means of supporting the production of cutting-edge scholarship. Universities, perhaps more than some other institutions, are concerned to apply standards of critical rationality in setting their main goals. According to our best canons of scholarship and reasonable inquiry, it is not wrong (though it may be scandalous) for us to hire, promote, or tenure Marxists or exponents of other unpopular theories. We do not permit a dose of bad publicity or phone calls from outraged parents to define the academic enterprise. It would seem, then, that we have a similar responsibility when it comes to the controversial topic of industry-sponsored research. We should weigh the reality of ethics and academic integrity, according to our best lights, more heavily than the appearance.

III. Our challenge and opportunity at USC. USC has historically been an entrepreneurial university, which encouraged and rewarded energetic, imaginative, and entrepreneurial faculty. Today, research partnerships with industry, as with other universities and non-profits, provide outlets and opportunities for academic entrepreneurship. Our strategic plan, looking ahead to the coming decades and the challenges and opportunities they present to USC, affirms the value of such partnerships. They enable us to team up with other sources of talent, so that we can do more collaboratively than we can on our own. They extend us beyond the point at which tuition dollars, gifts, and government grants can take us. They bring us into contact with community needs. And they enable us to disseminate our work and extend its influence and impact. But our strategic plan also commits us to preserve and honor academic integrity, both for its own sake and for the sake of the goodwill without which we cannot thrive. And our USC Code of Ethics further requires us to build the ethical stature of our university. Harmonizing these commitments requires hard thought and hard work. The work is also more than timely – it is urgent.