A professor runs a research unit of some sort that gets grants.
At some point it occurs to the professor that he or she could start a business and steer grants the business gets to the university research unit.
This is classic conflict of interest, and there’s a case of it now at the University of Missouri.
An internal audit of MU’s Research Animal Diagnostic Laboratory, known as RADIL, prompted the lab’s director, Lela Riley, to step down because of a conflict of interest.
According to a statement issued by the university, a conflict of interest arose because Riley was both the head of the research lab and the head of a “private venture company” called Impact Bio Labs LLC. The company and the lab do business together, and MU felt that management changes were necessary to absolve the conflict.
Make that resolve the conflict. Conflicts don’t need absolution.
Another article about this conflict explained it this way:
In 2005, Riley and seven RADIL faculty members formed a private venture company known as Impact Bio Labs LLC. As a private company, Impact Bio Labs has been able to secure federal grant funding for private companies and unavailable to public universities.
Again, the idea is to steer grant money that the university can’t get directly to the university because, as owner of the private business, you now control the grant and can move it around. And you’re gonna move it around to your lab, of course. Conflict of interest means you’ve really got things sewn up. You’ve got them coming and going.
July 4th, 2009 at 7:31AM
Can’t we go back to the good old days when the money was steered to friends and family members, preferably through a middleman? Giving it directly to oneself is just tacky.
July 4th, 2009 at 7:46AM
Oh, that still goes on like crazy too, tp.