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The AAUP is pleased to issue this comprehensive draft report, Recommended Principles and Practices to Guide Academy-Industry Relationships, for public comment. Responses may be directed to academicfreedom@aaup.org. After a review of the comments received, the report will be revised as appropriate.
This is one of the longest reports that the AAUP has ever produced. It deals with issues that are in the news every week and that are having a critical impact on higher education in the United States and across the world. The days when industry-funded research was concentrated in a limited number of universities have passed. Every type and size of institution is now faced with both the opportunities and the responsibilities that such research relationships entail.
The report opens with a summary of recommendations regarding the principles that colleges and universities should adopt, as appropriate, in their governing and advisory documents and in their contracts with outside funders. The main body of the report follows, beginning with an overview of the history and current state of engagement between industry and the academy. The balance of the report discusses each of fifty-some recommendations and guidelines in much greater detail, offering not only rationales for them, but also documentation and qualification. Those involved in reviewing, adopting, and implementing these recommendations should benefit from the detailed information provided. An appendix summarizes sources for each of the recommendations and notes those that are new to this report or modified from other sources.
The report urges that faculty governing bodies have greater authority over the principles regulating outside funding and over the disposition of inventions derived from faculty research, but it is by no means exclusively an assertion of faculty rights. It specifies—and emphasizes—the responsibilities that must come with outside funding, among them the public disclosure of all financial conflicts of interest. Not all will readily embrace those responsibilities, but the time has surely come when every institution needs to debate and consider them.
This report began with a 2010 decision by Committee A on Academic Freedom and Tenure to examine the area of concern. A small group met early in 2011 to draft a brief set of sample recommendations. The resulting discussion helped reveal the scope and challenges of the project. Jennifer Washburn, an investigative journalist familiar with the relevant literature, was invited to help prepare a full report in conjunction with the AAUP president.
Please note that the report is an uncorrected draft.
Download the entire report as a pdf (large file--3.05 MB)
Or you can download in pieces (still pretty large files):
Introduction (1.6 MB)
Main text of report, plus the notes (1.73 MB)
Appendix (874 KB)