Definitions

UO employees may encounter terminology while navigating the UO's Conflict of Interest, Conflict of Commitment and Outside Activities Policy and the Financial Conflicts of Interest in Research Policy. This page offers helpful definitions, and employees are welcome to email the conflicts of interest team with questions.

  • Conflict of Interest in Research (COIR): A Significant Financial Interest that could directly and significantly affect the design, conduct, or reporting of sponsored activity, as determined by the university.
    Policy: FCOI Policy
    Also Referred to As: Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) or Financial Conflict of Interest in Research (FCOIR)

  • Conflict of Commitment: A situation where an individual engages in outside activities, either paid or unpaid, that substantially interfere with the individual’s duties to the University of Oregon.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy

  • Conflict of Interest:  Any action, decision, or recommendation by a person acting in their capacity as a university employee that would (for actual conflicts) or could (for potential conflicts) have a private financial impact on the person or their relative, or any business with which either is associated.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy

  • Consulting: Providing expert knowledge or advice to an entity or person. Consulting does not include conducting research and development or creating technological improvements, inventions, or software.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy

  • Consulting Entity: Any business, company, or other organization, including (but not limited to) any partnership, corporation, limited liability corporation, or other institution whether public, for-profit, or not-for-profit that provides expert knowledge or advice to an entity or person.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy

  • Duties: Responsibilities expected and performed on behalf of the university for which people are employed by the university, as described in a position description, unit-level workload policy, assigned by a supervisor, or otherwise required of an employee by the university.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy

  • Employee: Any employee, official, or agent as defined by state law.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy

  • Entity: Any business, company, or other organization, including (but not limited to) any partnership, corporation, limited liability corporation, foreign government or agent, or other institution whether public, for-profit, or not-for-profit.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy

  • Investigator: The project director or principal investigator and any other person, regardless of title or position, who is responsible for the design, conduct, or reporting of sponsored activity. Investigator can include (but is not limited to) professorial faculty, research associates, emeritus faculty, research collaborators, post-doctoral students, graduate students, visiting scientists, and individuals with courtesy appointments, external collaborators, or outside consultants, regardless of whether paid or unpaid. The term investigator does not usually apply to, but does not preclude, departmental grant administrators or financial staff.
    Policy: FCOI Policy

  • Institutional responsibilities: An investigator's professional responsibilities on behalf of the institution, as defined by the institution in its policy on financial conflicts of interest, which may include for example: activities such as research, research consultation, teaching, professional practice, institutional committee memberships, and service on panels such as Institutional Review Boards or Data and Safety Monitoring Boards.
    Policy: FCOI Policy

  • Key Personnel: The program director or principal investigator and other individuals who contribute to the scientific development or execution of a project in a substantive, measurable way, whether or not they request salaries or compensation. Key Personnel is sometimes referred to as Senior Personnel, and they are designated as such in the EPCS system.

  • Manage: Action(s) to address a financial conflict of interest, which can include reducing or eliminating the financial conflict of interest, to ensure that the design, conduct, and reporting of research will be free from bias to the extent possible.

  • Management Plan: An agreement between University of Oregon employees (or subrecipients on UO awards who are using the FCOI Policy) and the university designed to manage, reduce, or eliminate the individual's existing, potential, or apparent conflicts with their UO duties and/or research. Management plans can be developed and approved under the COI/COC Policy, the FCOI Policy, or both.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy and FCOI Policy

  • Outside Activities: Things that an employee does which are not duties and are not performed on behalf of the university.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy

  • Public Health Service (PHS): The Public Health Service of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services and any components of the PHS to which the authority involved may be delegated, including the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

  • Relative: (a) the spouse, parent, stepparent, child, sibling, stepsibling, son-in-law or daughter-in-law of the employee or official; (b) the parent, stepparent, child, sibling, stepsibling, son-in-law or daughter-in-law of the spouse of the employee or official; (c) any individual for whom the employee or official has a legal support obligation; (d) any individual for whom the employee or official provides benefits arising from the employee’s public employment or from whom the employee or official receives benefits arising from that individual’s employment.
    Policy: COI/COC Policy, as defined in Oregon State Statute 244

  • Research: A systematic investigation, study, or experiment designed to develop or contribute to generalizable knowledge. The term encompasses basic and applied research (e.g., a published article, book, or book chapter) and product development (e.g., a diagnostic test or drug). It includes any activity for which research funding is awarded through grant, award, fellowship, training, project, or research resources award.
    Policy: FCOI Policy

  • Significant Financial Interest (SFI): A financial interest consisting of one or more of the following interests of the investigator (and those of the investigator’s spouse and dependent children) that reasonably appears to be related to the investigator’s institutional responsibilities:

    • With regard to any publicly traded entity, a Significant Financial Interest exists if the value of any remuneration received from the entity in the twelve months preceding the disclosure and the value of any equity interest in the entity as of the date of disclosure, when aggregated, exceeds $5,000. For purposes of this definition, remuneration includes salary and any payment for services not otherwise identified as salary (e.g., consulting fees, honoraria, paid authorship); equity interest includes any stock, stock option, or other ownership interest, as determined through reference to public prices or other reasonable measures of fair market value;

    • With regard to any non-publicly traded entity, a Significant Financial Interest exists if the value of any remuneration received from the entity in the twelve months preceding the disclosure, when aggregated, exceeds $5,000, or when the Investigator (or the Investigator’s spouse or dependent children) holds any equity interest (e.g., stock, stock option, or other ownership interest); or

    • Intellectual property rights and interests (e.g., patents, copyrights), upon receipt of income related to such rights and interests.

    • Any reimbursed or sponsored travel (i.e., that which is paid on behalf of and not reimbursed to the Investigator), that, when aggregated, exceeds $5,000 per individual entity and that is related to the Investigator’s institutional responsibilities, including the purpose of the trip, the identity of the sponsor/organizer, the destination, and the duration; but not including travel reimbursed or sponsored by a Federal, state, or local government agency, an Institution of higher education as defined at 20 U.S.C. 1001(a), an academic teaching hospital, a medical center, or a research institute affiliated with an Institution of higher education. 

The National Science Foundation (NSF) also includes requirements to disclose additional information about any private equity or venture capital investors in non-publicly traded companies, activities, or interests if the financial interest in the company or the company’s activities reasonably appear to be affected by NSF funding or proposed NSF funding.

  • Significant Financial Interest does not include the following types of financial interests:

    • Salary, royalties, or other remuneration paid by the university, including intellectual property rights assigned to the university and agreements to share in royalties related to such rights; 

    • Income from investment vehicles, such as mutual funds and retirement accounts, as long as the Investigator does not directly control the investment decisions made in these vehicles;  

    • Payment from a federal, state, or local government agency, an institution of higher education as defined at 20 U.S.C. 1001(a), an academic teaching hospital, a medical center, or a research institute affiliated with an institution of higher education for seminars, lectures, or teaching engagements; or service on advisory committees or review panels.

      Policy: FCOI Policy

  • SFI Disclosure: An investigator’s formal or explicit statement disclosing Significant Financial Interests (SFIs) to the university. Investigators submit these disclosures annually and within 30 days of a change in their SFIs using the Research Administration Portal. Please note that SFI disclosures are not separate from disclosures under the COI/COC Policy. Therefore, when disclosing financial interests in the portal, please include all applicable SFIs as well as any outside activities or interests that requires disclosure under the COI/COC Policy.
    Policy: FCOI Policy

  • Subrecipient: Any investigator outside the university community receiving research funds from the university through subaward, subcontract, or consortium agreement.
    Policy: FCOI Policy