Conflicts of Interest and Commitment

(revised 8/8/11)

OBLIGATIONS TO HARVARD POLICY ON CONFLICTS OF INTEREST AND COMMITMENT

To ensure the integrity of the institution and its scientific enterprise, the school has explicit rules and holds implicit norms governing behavior of its appointees. With the acceptance of a non-faculty academic appointment at Harvard, you are expected to be aware of your obligations under the school’s Policy on Conflicts of Interest and Commitment. Accordingly, permission for full-time non-faculty academic appointees to undertake outside activities such as consulting must be sought from and given by the appointee’s department chair or supervisor. Further, you are required to complete and submit online disclosure forms at the beginning of each calendar year and when relevant circumstances change between reporting cycles.

To fully understand your obligations, please consult the school’s policy found at http://www.hsph.harvard.edu/administrative-offices/faculty-affairs/outside-activities/outside-professional-activities.html. This policy is intended to serve as a guide for HSPH appointees in structuring their relationships with industry and other outside ventures in view of their academic responsibilities for teaching, research, and administrative duties.

In addition, we would like to bring to your attention the university’s guidelines on financial conflicts of interest which apply to all academic appointees.  These guidelines are available online at http://www.provost.harvard.edu/policies_guidelines/Harvard_University_fCOI_policy.pdf