Disclosure of Conflict of Interest (COI)




Sample Paper Excerpt
A researcher from an academic institution receives a request by a program officer to participate in a round of reviews for proposals in an area in which she has considerable background. The review process is a single blind review where she will know the name of the authors of the proposals, but the reviewers will remain anonymous to the authors. The researcher agrees to participate because she feels the opportunity to review proposals will enhance her professional service record. She is given a number of proposals to read, but is assigned to take the lead on reviewing one proposal in particular. As the researcher proceeds with reviewing this assigned proposal, she realizes that she may have a conflict of interests with one of the authors. Earlier in her career, she and the author in question had a mutual affiliation with a research endeavor at a private research lab. There collaborative efforts resulted in several unpublished reports. Since the affiliation was more than five years ago, and the duration of the affiliation was less than nine months, the researcher is uncertain whether she should identify and certify this on the pre-meeting and post-meeting Conflict of Interest Certification forms (COI_Information.pdf, 2005).

How should the reviewer proceed with this proposal?
Say nothing to the program officer and submit the review without any mention of a possible COI. Say nothing to the program officer until submitting the review that includes a disclosure of possible COI. Decides to say nothing unless it is brought up by the program officer. Reveal this conflict of interest immediately and let the program officer determine how to proceed.

Proceed to the


Finished?