Institutional Policies
One of my current research interests – actually an ongoing project – is the study of institutional policies dealing with academic integrity, and in particular, policies on COI. So it was with great interest that I read the following stories about the progress being made in some US universities & medical schools: Many medical schools update ethics policies.
The University of Minnesota is not alone in tackling conflict-of-interest issues. Allan Coukell, director of the Pew Prescription Project, which tracks such policies in medicine, has said that in the past two years, one-third of university medical schools have either approved new policies or are in the process of doing so.
As in this case (and others – Conflict-of-Interest Policies: A Detailed Look) attention is still to a large extent on the COI posed by relations between professors/clinicians and the pharmaceutical industry. While this is an important issue, and probably a legitimate focus, institutional COI policies should not only deal with the issues arising from interaction with the pharma industry. They should also attend to the broad range of interests at stake in academia — including those in the context of research, teaching, consulting, etc. — and with the range of public and private sector actors (government, NGOs, companies) that interact with universities.