Is Corporate Research Funding Leading To Secrecy In Science?

Science? Many from academia and industry dispute an NCI scientist's charge that confidentiality agreements restrict the free exchange of information. CONCERNED: NCI's Steven Rosenberg worries that research agreements promote secrecy among scientists. Few scientists with research support from industry complain in these times of increasing competition for grants from federal agencies. Yet some investigators are concerned that corporate desires to keep firm control over so-called proprietary in

Written bySteven Benowitz

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Science? Many from academia and industry dispute an NCI scientist's charge that confidentiality agreements restrict the free exchange of information.

CONCERNED: NCI's Steven Rosenberg worries that research agreements promote secrecy among scientists.

Few scientists with research support from industry complain in these times of increasing competition for grants from federal agencies. Yet some investigators are concerned that corporate desires to keep firm control over so-called proprietary information conflict with the freewheeling, open research style of the academic and government scientist. The most prominent person to raise the issue is cancer vaccine pioneer Steven A. Rosenberg.

Rosenberg, chief of surgery at the National Cancer Institute, worries about confidentiality agreements that scientists sign with corporate funders in order to use company materials. He contends that these arrangements may unnecessarily restrict the exchange of information among scientists.

Secrecy in research "is underappreciated, and it's holding back medical cancer research-it's holding back my research," ...

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