Don’t you just hate when that happens?  Based on what you’ve stated, Brenda, it appears that there could be both an individual conflict as well as an institutional conflict.  We try to stay away from accepting awards of any type from companies owned by our faculty members, especially in situations where the faculty member is running both the SBIR prime award as well as being the PI on the subaward.  Even though it is possible to “manage” these situations, dealing with the appearance it presents can be more trouble than it’s worth.  We once had a faculty member who owned his own company issue a subcontract to the University by writing a personal check, which he instructed us to deposit in an account with him as the PI.  In another situation, our faculty member was Vice President for research in a company that was submitting an NIH proposal indicating our institution as a subcontractor.  When we questioned the faculty member who was supposed to be the subcontract PI, he knew nothing about it and was being used merely to accomplish an objective.  These are a couple of examples of situations that you may want to think long and hard about before agreeing to anything.  At a very minimum, you should bring these situations to the COI committee at your institution to accomplish disclosure and invoke your individual and institutional COI policies, thus, raising the bar for obtaining review and approval of the activities.  Just my thoughts…

 

Cheers,

Franc

 

 

Hello everyone,

Our institution has several faculty who have "spin-off" companies, and these companies have been awarded SBIR grants through NIH.  Would these faculty members be violating OMB Circ. A-21 policy regarding compensation by receiving payments from the spin-off companies portion of the SBIR budget?  I am referring to payments in addition to the institutionaly salary they receive.  Thanks for your input.  

Brenda McKinley, CRA
Grants Coordinator
The University of Toledo
Office of Research
MS 944  2801 W. Bancroft St.
Toledo, OH  43606-3390
Phone (419) 530-4459
Fax (419) 530-2841
email:  xxxxxx@utoledo.edu