In a May 16 Calmessages memo to deans, directors, and department chairs, Vice Chancellor for Research Beth Burnside announced a new online briefing program in conflict of interest designed for UC researchers. The text of the memo is included below.
On May 23rd, the University of California will launch an online Conflict of Interest Briefing for researchers at all UC locations.
The Briefing, which takes about 30 minutes to complete, is designed to help researchers recognize and deal with conflict of interest situations that may arise during their work. The new Conflict of Interest Briefing was developed by a UC team that included members of the faculty and research staffs from various campuses, headed by the UCOP Office of Research, with a vendor, Workplace Answers. Like the Ethics Briefing, which was rolled out to the campus in April, the Briefing can be taken on any computer with Internet access.
Not all Principal Investigators or those with research responsibilities will be required to take the Briefing. Researchers have been identified as those individuals in the various professorial
and research title series who received more than $1000 in salary from selected extramural funding sources over the past 12 months. On May 23rd, the selected Berkeley researchers will receive an email from coibriefing@berkeley.edu with a personalized link that will direct
them to the new Conflict of Interest Briefing.
As with the Ethics Briefing, individuals are encouraged to complete the Conflict of Interest Briefing soon after they receive the email notification. The Briefing will remain available to them for their reference throughout the year. Researchers are encouraged to bookmark the link/Briefing so that they may refer to it in the future.
Questions regarding the conflict of interest briefing may be directed to coibriefing@berkeley.edu.
