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At universities, consulting is considered a legitimate outside professional activity and in. some
cases actively encouraged as a supplement to university saares. Some schools, including MI,
Harard, and Columbia (including Lamont-Dohert), place an upper limit of 20 percent (or no
more than one day each week) on time spent consulting. Outside consulting usually is prohibited
or strongly discuraged at FFRDCs and university-affiliate, government-sponsored resech
labs, both of which are likely to perform resech predominantly for single federa agency
"sponsors." These prohibitions may originate from the perceived nee to maintan imparialty
when asked by federa agencies to evaluate commercial bids for R&D or procurement contracts.
Reseach Contrcts. Contrcts are the most direct form of collaboration between a scientific
institution and an industr sponsor. Contracts usuay are directe at the performance of a
speific task, such as the design and testing of an ocographic instrment. Contracts ca tae
a number of forms, depending upon the nees of the commercial sponsor and the capabilties of
the resech institution. Generaly, institutions engaged in fundamenta scientific resech may
have only limite interest or proficiency in conducting applied resech or engineering
development. The boundar between basic and applied resech is not shar, however, and
numerous examples of industr-sponsored resech in ocography exist.
Presently industr contracts accunt for only a small par ofWHOI's sponsored resech. Many
industr contrcts at WHOI have been subcontracts on federa agency contrcts to a prime
source.
Initial negotiations with industr for contrct resech often involve discussions over two kinds
of "nondisclosure" restrctions. These concern (1) the use of proprieta data or resources that
belong to the commercial firm and (2) the extent to which resech results may be disseminated.
As a genera rule, WHOI does not agree to any restrction on the public dissemination of the
results of resech conducte at WHOI, unless the restrction is relate to a national seurity
classification requirement.
A different approach is taen at many universities, where industr contracts ca represent
significat proportons of overal funding. Prepublication review clauses usuay are accpted
by universities on industr contrcts in order to identify potentially patentable technologies and
to sc publications for company-proprieta information (Nelsen, 1988). The time period for
such review is usually limite to 30 days, and is viewed as a meas of expeitig the movement
of basic technology from the resech environment to the commercial setor, where it ca be
disseminated more widely and effciently than by publication alone. Some universities, including
Harard, perceive prepublication review to conflct with the university's basic reseach mission
and obligation to the public, and therefore disalow it.
Reseach Grats. The bulk of resech grats involve industral liaison programs, which are
discusse below. At WHOI, some grants have originate from industral trde associations (the
America Chemica Society) or molecular biology firms. We distinguish grats from resech
contracts becuse grats tend to give more discretion to the resecher than do contrcts in
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