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Industry-university collaborations in Canada, Japan, the UK and USA--with emphasis on publication freedom and managing the intellectual property lock-up problem.

ABSTRACT: As industry-university collaborations are promoted to commercialize university research and foster economic growth, it is important to understand how companies benefit from these collaborations, and to ensure that resulting academic discoveries are developed for the benefit of all stakeholders: companies, universities and public. Lock up of inventions, and censoring of academic publications, should be avoided if feasible. This case-study analysis of interviews with 90 companies in Canada, Japan, the UK and USA assesses the scope of this challenge and suggests possible resolutions. The participating companies were asked to describe an important interaction with universities, and most described collaborative research. The most frequently cited tensions concerned intellectual property management and publication freedom. IP disagreements were most frequent in the context of narrowly-focused collaborations with American universities. However, in the case of exploratory research, companies accepted the IP management practices of US universities. It might make sense to let companies have an automatic exclusive license to IP from narrowly defined collaborations, but to encourage universities to manage inventions from exploratory collaborations to ensure development incentives. Although Canada, the UK and US have strong publication freedom guarantees, tensions over this issue arose frequently in focused collaborations, though were rare in exploratory collaborations. The UK Lambert Agreements give sponsors the option to control publications in return for paying the full economic cost of a project. This may offer a model for the other three countries. Uniquely among the four countries, Japan enables companies to control exclusively most collaborative inventions and to censor academic publications. Despite this high degree of control, the interviews suggest many companies do not develop university discoveries to their full potential. The steps suggested above may rebalance the situation in Japan. Overall, the interviews reveal the complexity of these issues and the need for flexibility on the part of universities and companies.

SUBMITTER: Kneller R

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3954545 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Industry-university collaborations in Canada, Japan, the UK and USA--with emphasis on publication freedom and managing the intellectual property lock-up problem.

Kneller Robert R Mongeon Marcel M Cope Jeff J Garner Cathy C Ternouth Philip P

PloS one 20140314 3

As industry-university collaborations are promoted to commercialize university research and foster economic growth, it is important to understand how companies benefit from these collaborations, and to ensure that resulting academic discoveries are developed for the benefit of all stakeholders: companies, universities and public. Lock up of inventions, and censoring of academic publications, should be avoided if feasible. This case-study analysis of interviews with 90 companies in Canada, Japan, ...[more]

PMID: 24632805

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Project description:OBJECTIVE:To gather information about current practices and implementation of publication guidelines among publication professionals working in or for the pharmaceutical industry. DESIGN/SETTING:Web-based survey publicised via email and social media to members of the International Society for Medical Publication Professionals (ISMPP) and other organisations from November 2012 to February 2013. PARTICIPANTS:469 individuals involved in publishing industry-sponsored research in peer-reviewed journals, mainly working in pharmaceutical or device companies ('industry', n=144), communication agencies ('agency', n=238), contract research organisations (CRO, n=15) or as freelancers (n=34). Most respondents (78%) had worked on medical publications for ?5 years and 62% had a PhD/MD. RESULTS:Over 90% of industry, agency and CRO respondents routinely refer to Good Publication Practice (GPP2) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors' Uniform Requirements. Most respondents (78% industry, 79% agency) received mandatory training on ethical publication practices. Over 90% of respondents' companies had publication guidelines or policies and required medical writing support to be acknowledged in publications (96% industry, 99% agency). Many industry respondents used publication management tools to monitor compliance with company guidelines and about half (46%) stated that their company had formal publication audits. Fewer agencies audited adherence to guidelines but 20% of agency respondents reported audits of employees and 6% audits of freelancers. Of concern, 37% of agency respondents reported requests from authors or sponsors that they believed were unethical, although 93% of these requests were withdrawn after respondents explained the need for compliance with guidelines. Most respondents' departments (63% industry, 58% agency, 60% CRO) had been involved in publishing studies with negative or inconclusive results. CONCLUSIONS:Within this sample, most publication professionals working in or for industry were aware of, and applying, major publication guidelines. However, the survey also identified specific areas where education and promotion of guidelines are needed to ensure ethical publication practices.

Dataset Information

Industry-university collaborations in Canada, Japan, the UK and USA--with emphasis on publication freedom and managing the intellectual property lock-up problem.

Publications

Industry-university collaborations in Canada, Japan, the UK and USA--with emphasis on publication freedom and managing the intellectual property lock-up problem.

Similar Datasets

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