Managing Conflicts of Interest & Commitment

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The Federal Concern:

U.S. researchers may be inappropriately influenced by foreign entities when their outside activities with those entities confer personal benefit and/or conflict with their institutional duties.  Personnel or organizations that maintain financial interest in a foreign entity may be inappropriately influenced by that entity to share intellectual property (IP) and/or affect the course of research.  Such financial conflicts are strictly regulated, and most federal, state, corporate, and private sponsors require notification and remediation of such conflict.

Many research sponsors and federal agencies now also mandate reporting on a variety of international extra-professional activities and international affiliations; however, required reporting varies widely by sponsor/entity and project type. Most international activities and affiliations do not trigger foreign influence concerns. However, in order to support streamlined and expedient reporting to federal, state, and sponsoring entities, USM must collect information on institutional and extra-professional activities that occur with international entities.