USC faculty members (including part-time and visiting faculty), staff (such as postdoctoral scholars), and students (including postdoctoral fellows and graduate students) are expected to avoid maintaining financial or other personal interests that might compromise their objectivity in carrying out USC responsibilities related to proposing, conducting, or reporting research, or otherwise directly and significantly affect USC’s interests related to research.

Under USC’s Conflict of Interest in Research policy, all university faculty members, staff and other employees, and students who propose, conduct or report research on behalf of the University, regardless of funding source, have an obligation to disclose any actual or apparent conflicts of interest so that they can be managed.

Finally, all faculty members, staff and other employees, and students have an obligation to follow any plan put into place by the University to manage disclosed conflicts of interest, and to disclose any changes to their financial or other personal interests that may occur after they initially disclose an actual or apparent conflict of interest.

Policies and Procedures

USC’s policies and procedures related to the identification, disclosure, and management of conflicts of interest related to research may be found in the USC Conflict of Interest in Research Policy.

Education and Training

The Office of Compliance has created a Grants Management Education program, which is offered to all faculty, staff, and students.  The program is comprised of two courses, a live lecture entitled “It’s About More Than Just Good Science:  A How-To Guide For Effective Grants Management”, which focuses on fiscal and administrative issues related to grants, and an on-line course titled “Above Reproach: Ethical Conduct in Research”, which focuses on ethical issues related to the proposal, conduct, and reporting of research.

Both courses offer education and training with regard to conflicts of interest, including defining what a conflict of interest is as well as explaining the responsibilities of USC faculty, staff, and students under the Conflict of Interest in Research policy.  You may register for either course by clicking on the “Grants Management Education Program” link on this website.

The Office of Compliance also regularly publishes the Health Sciences Compliance Newsletter, which is intended to provide the research community with current information about health care and research compliance issues, including issues with regard to conflicts of interest in research.   Contact the Office of Compliance to be added to the listserve for the Newsletter, or click on the Healthcare Compliance Newsletter link in the Healthcare Compliance section of this website to view or download past issues.

Monitoring and Auditing

The Financial Disclosure Review Committee and the Vice Provost for Research Advancement may impose a wide range of monitoring mechanisms with respect to any disclosed conflict of interest that require the Investigator to submit updates to the FDRC at designated intervals, submit data and/or publications to independent reviewers, provide copies to the FDRC of any financial or other disclosure statements submitted to journal editors or conferences, or additional monitoring recommendations as circumstances dictate.

Statement of Outside Interests Related to Research

(You will need Adobe Reader or Acrobat to fill out the form. If you do not have either software, you can obtain a free copy of Adobe Reader at http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/.)