Summary: During the 1980s, the increasing importance of university research to technological innovation forged new links among industry, academia, and government. The federal government spent $9.6 billion sponsoring research at universities in fiscal year 1990, while business outlays for such research topped $1 billion that year. Closer ties between universities and the private sector raise concerns, however, about possible conflicts of interest or other relationships that might give businesses inappropriate access to and therefore an unfair advantage in commercializing the results of federally funded research. Requiring that investigators and other key personnel disclose outside interests as part of the grant award process, which both the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation are considering, is an essential first step toward improving university management controls over potential conflicts of interest. But GAO believes that additional steps are warranted to strengthen these controls and to address the ability of industrial liaison program members to get advance access to the results of federally funded research.
