The Scientist has an annual feature I’ve followed with interest since it’s inception: the annual survey of the best places for postdocs to work. You can go directly to the tables and survey methodology. Rankings for US and international sites are broken out, but the lists combine academic, private, government, and industry employers (click on the “Type” column to sort them accordingly - clicking on all the column heads sorts the data thusly).
Let’s see … while I’ve been trying to save the world from bad grantsmanship, last week the NSF released its FY 2006 academic R&D expenditure data … no payline news likely to be forthcoming Read the rest of this entry »
Yes, the Department of Energy prides itself in “Advancing the Energy, Economic, & National Security of the US.” Four years into its 20-year plan, Facilities for the Future of Science: A Twenty-Year Outlook, the DOE has released an interim report.
You may recall that the DOE was the originator of and longtime partner in the Human Genome Project. They’ve since transitioned to a Genomics:GTL (genomics to life) program and support for Bioenergy Research Centers.
The NSF has published data for Federal Science & Engineering Awards to universities, colleges, and nonprofit institutions for FY05. For those bean counters who study these tables closely, one item to consider in these post 9/11 years is that the Dept of Homeland Security is lumped in with the 10 “other” agencies, with some special considerations in specific tables (see the Table Notes for details). Johns Hopkins maintains its commanding lead in S&E obligations ($1.23B), about half of which goes to its heavily DoD-endowed Applied Physics Laboratory (APL).
The NSF data on FY05 R&D expenditures by industry show a 5.4% increase (adjusted for inflation) from FY04: $226 billion in 2005 compared with $208 billion in 2004. As a reminder, federally funded R&D increased by 4.9% in the same period (also adjusted for inflation). The tables show performance by sector, sales & employment by sector, R&D $ by company size, and R&D $ by state, with some interesting summary notes on geographic distribution (or lack thereof) for industry R&D expenditures at the end.
An upcoming “Celebration of Innovators” here at Baby It’s Cold Outside reminded me to remind all of yuns about the importance of protecting any unpublished data and intellectual property submitted as part of a federal grant application BEFORE said application receives an award (ie, funding).
In the course of my work, I regularly recognize IP in grant applications that should be reported to the Office of Technology Management (often called tech transfer) prior to submission and encourage the PI to do so … and then send a heads-up note to the appropriate licensing manager since I know the PI will not take the time to contact OTM. This Office is completely divorced from my office (different reporting lines & everything), so these folks were initially surprised to hear from me but appreciate the vigilance during grant review.
More importantly & instructively, also in the course of my work, I contact PIs with funded applications to invite them to contribute the narrative to a repository of successful proposals that serve as exemplars for other faculty. I have been dismayed to receive notes back saying there was too much unpublished data and unprotected IP to share the proposal, even internally (& who knows how many PIs who never respond keep silent for the same reason). Please ask again in a year or so, when protections have been made. After giving the PI the bad news that his/her funded proposal is actually in the public domain (open to FOIA requests) and their IP publicly disclosed, I immediately forward the distressing message to OTM to see if they can salvage anything. Even these salvage operations could be futile, which is a damn shame since the PI knew enough to think his/her IP needed to be protected - just no clue as to when or how.
Take home message: steps to protect IP (eg, invention disclosure) must be taken before a federal award is made, which means before the grant application is submitted. No matter how busy you are. Period.
FASEB COI Guiding Principle #2 admonishes that “Transparency in academia-industry relationships in research is important to advance research and promote trust of colleagues and the public. Transparency describes openness and willingness to accept scrutiny.”
To achieve such transparency, an open, uniform, “mentorable” institutional model for academic-industry partnerships must be advocated by the highest levels of University administration. Such an exemplary model exists at UC Berkeley, which advances its fundamental principles in negotiating industry agreements in “How Academic Freedom and Academic Principles are Preserved in Sponsored Research Agreements with Industry.” These same principles are mirrored in similar corporate research agreement templates used by many universities to preserve academic integrity.
However, unlike Berkeley, not all universities restrict industry prepublication review to 30 d (or even 60 d, as the recommended maximum by FASEB) … some universities are willing to give up part or all of their IP rights, en masse in a master agreement and/or on a case-by-case basis … others accept not being on the same footing as their industry “partner” with regard to being able to terminate a research agreement (e.g., company can terminate at any time, university may only terminate with sufficient notice at specified milestones in the agreement). Roy Poses offers several commentaries on troubling aspects of industry-academia contracts.
FASEB, ORI, and AAMC would like to eliminate the potential for (or perception of) excessive industry influence in academic research through nationally consistent policies and practices for disclosing and managing financial relationships between academia and industry in biomedical research. We’ll see. Some University officials will always feel they are more equal than others when it comes to policing their own industry contracts and COI behind a firewall of confidentiality agreements.
Of possible interest … Journalology, Scientific Publishing Trends, Ethics, Peer Review, and Open Access - by Matt Hodgkinson, an editor with BioMed Central. Wonder if Cathy DeAngelis knows about this? Shoot, reading this blog should cover NIH F/K/T trainees for RCR training in authorship.
Today, a laundry list of journal entries and quandries with ethical strings attached.
Science includes a write-up of an AAAS survey of postdoc supervisors intended “to determine what factors contribute to a successful postdoctoral experience from the supervisors’ point of view.”
Apparently, no supervisors felt any discussion of scientific integrity, research misconduct, or ethical grey areas were essential to this success.
Instead, “The top 3 general responsibilities for supervising postdocs identified by survey participants were discussing research project and direction (96%), reviewing data analysis and interpretation of results (91%), and assisting with writing manuscripts and seminar preparation (84%). Fewer supervisors cited providing guidance for career planning (75%) and helping to write grants and assist with funding efforts (64%).”
Nature Bioentrepreneur (”from bench to boardroom”) has a IP-related piece entitled “Learning How to Get Along with Others” … the sort of thing we don’t seem to teach in kindergarten anymore since these tots need to start getting ready on day one for the school’s 2nd Grade standardized tests (wouldn’t want any of them left behind). Anyway, with statements such as “The importance of IP within academia is increasing, and although the reasons for this are complex, the primary factors are somehow related to money”, the content is not going to knock your socks off. Common sense guidance is given on talking through IP issues (& hopefully publication policies) during the planning stages and as work progresses … but no magic bullets on getting along, sadly.
