Industry Funds Sway Researchers' Aims, Says Harvard Study

University faculty who receive research grants from industry are more likely to be influenced by the commercial applications of their research and to keep their research findings secret than those who receive funding elsewhere, according to a recent study done by Harvard's Center for Health Policy and Management.

But the survey of 1200 researchers at 40 major universities nationwide also outlined potential benefits to universities of industry-funded research, which has grown twice as fast as government support this decade, from $135 million to $290 million.

Despite the survey's findings, however, Harvard professors and doctors who are involved in industry-sponsored research said that they feel no pressure to commercialize their research, and feel perfectly free to publish all of their findings.

The faculty who receive funding from industry tend to be those who publish more often, participate more in public service, and patent more than researchers receiving funding from other sources, said David Blumenthal, one of the study's authors and head of the Kennedy School of Government-based center.

"One can conclude from these findings that industry is adding to the resources of the more productive faculty in universities, so that the universities benefit," said Blumenthal.

"There was some question whether industrial funds were going to people interested in commercial activities and not academic ones, and this study proves that researchers continue to be productive by academic standards," he added.

But the benefits do not outweigh the possible threat to academic freedom and honesty that funding from private industry may create. "It's no free ride," Blumenthal said.

Faculty members receiving industrial monies are four times as likely to keep the results of their research secret from the academic community, the survey discovered, and four times more likely to allow commercial applications of their research to redirect their projects.

Twelve percent of the industry-funded researchers interviewed said they were more likely to keep their results secret, as opposed to three percent of those who obtained funding from other sources.

University faculties have periodically voiced concern over pressures to commercialize their research, and the study shows that 25 percent of industry-supported researchers consider themselves constrained by their sponsors' concerns. These faculty members "feel uncomfortable with the expectation that their research should have commercial results," Blumenthal said.

Harvard Unaffected

But Harvard researchers at the Medical School and affiliated hospitals who receive large amounts of money from industry said they feel that funding from industries "has very little effect at all on the way the labs do research," said Robert E. Kingston, assistant professor of genetics at Harvard Medical School.

No specific commercial projects are done at Harvard labs or university hospitals, according to Joyce M. Brinton, director of the office for patents, copyrights and licensing.

Researchers focus instead on basic scientific study, and they receive industry support because "they are leaders in their field and companies hope for rare basic findings that will give them a window on current science and help them target internal research resources more effectively," Brinton said.

Currently, several members of the genetics department at Massachusetts General Hospital are conducting a 10-year cancer research project funded by a $50 million grant from Hoechst Chemical Corp., a Frankfurt-based international chemical and pharmaceutical company.

"Part of the contract is that we are an academic department and that we do basic research," said Howard M. Goodman, professor of genetics, who is in charge of the project. "We feel no pressure whatsoever, and Hoechst has no influence whatsoever on the kinds of projects our people are working on," he said.

The researchers' freedom is demonstrated by the nature of the projects they work on, Goodman said. "We work on very basic biological questions, few of which have even an inkling of commercial potential," he said.

Grants are not accepted by the University until they conform to academic rules, said M. Judah Folkman, professor of anatomy and cellular biology, who has received $300,000 to $600,000 a year since 1974 from a group of chemical companies.

The Center for Health Policy and Management recommended that universities "clarify their attitudes towards secrecy and monitor the researchers' sponsors," Blumenthal said.