Biotechnology : professional issues and social concerns / editors, Paul DeForest [and others].
- Date:
- [1988], ©1988
Licence: Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0)
Credit: Biotechnology : professional issues and social concerns / editors, Paul DeForest [and others]. Source: Wellcome Collection.
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![37 was not sufficiently fine-grained to determine the extent to which the research agendas of academic entrepreneurial scientists had shifted, if at all. The second area of impact is the imiversity. Much of the debate about university-in¬ dustry ties has focused on how this will change university mores. Will the academic ethic that has nourished free and open inquiry give way to a new ethic of corporate-sponsored research? Will universities be a major producer of trade secrets? Will professors be judged on their abiUty to attract revenue-generating projects? Although the evidence is incomplete, there are clear indications that academic re¬ search institutions have accommodated to industrial partnerships at the expense of tradi¬ tional norms of scientific behavior. First, limited secrecy has replaced the unrestricted flow of information as an approved norm of scientific behavior. Included among the guidelines proposed by Varrin and Kukich (1985) for universities engaged in industry- sponsored research are the provisions that graduate theses containing patentable material may be sequestered for a yecir and that investigators be allowed to sign con¬ fidentiality agreements prohibiting them from divulging sensitive information for up to five years. Most universities negotiating corporate research agreements have accepted publish¬ ing delays or even prohibitions where proprietary information is involved. The trend seems clearly toward practical compromise and away from the ideal of unfettered com¬ munication in science. For example, one of the surveys by Bh'menthal et al. (1986b) found that increased industry sponsorship of academic research was correlated with increased secrecy in universities. Biotechnology faculty with industry support were four times as likely as those without support to report trade secrets (i.e., information kept secret to protect its proprietary value). One scientist interviewed by Etzkowitz concisely captured this new academic ethic as follows: informing interested researchers without limit [is] a nineteenth century idea (Etzkowitz, 1984, p. 8). Second, universities have shifted their position on faculty entrepreneurship from neglect or even opposition to affirmative support. Several universities have actively in¬ vested in faculty enterprises and offered rental space for commercial ventures. Accord¬ ing to Etzkowitz: Some university administrators... are explicitly encouraging their academic staff to participate in industrial enterprises, viewing it as a contribution to economic development and as a means of gaining support for the university (Etzkowitz, 1983, p. 222). Moreover, universities are increasingly prepared to modify their conflict of interest rules to accommodate commercial ventures (Kenney, 1986). For example, in founding the for-profit biotechnology firm Neogen in 1981, Michigan State University changed its conflict of interest rules to allow professors to acquire equity in the company while simultaneously serving as consultants to it. In the past, faculty-owned firms were handled discreetly. Most universities had no restrictions against full-time faculty holding managerial positions. The case of Harvard Nobel biologist Walter Gilbert and his relationship to Biogen brought the issue to na¬ tional attention. However, the debate over the Gilbert-Biogen tie did not extend to a dis¬ pute over the basic idea of faculty involvement in commerciaUzing their research. Instead, the issue was the level of faculty involvement: whether full-time faculty should be permitted to serve as principals of firms; whether universities should be allowed to invest in faculty-managed firms; and whether such firms should be permitted to spon¬ sor research on Ccunpus. Varrin and Kukich (1985) recommend a compromise position: a faculty entrepreneur's company should not be permitted to sponsor his or her own research on campus, but the company should be permitted to sponsor other scientists on the cam-](https://iiif.wellcomecollection.org/image/b18035619_0046.JP2/full/800%2C/0/default.jpg)
