Research Teams and Partnerships Trends in the Chemical Sciences, Report of a Workshop (1999) / Chapter Skim
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6 Diluting Public Patrimony or Inventive Response to Increasing Knowledge Asymmetries: Watershed for Land Grant Universities? Reflections on the University of California, Berkeley-Novartis Agreement
6 Diluting Public Patrimony or Inventive Response to Increasing Knowledge Asymmetries: Watershed for Land Grant Universities? Reflections on the University of California, Berkeley-Novartis Agreement
Pages 66-84
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From page 66... ...
There has been a relative surge of capital investments on the campus in the past couple of years, which has been mainly for seismic safety upgrades designed to improve safety for people escaping from buildings during an earthquake. But this does not protect the buildings themselves.
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From page 67... ...
First, there was inadequate laboratory space for continuing the department' s outstanding research program and the fear that the department's standing as a major research and teaching resource in the discipline would be significantly diminished. Second and more novel was a fear that the equally important public function of assuring broadly available basic knowledge might be truncated in favor of the self-interests of multinational corporations.
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From page 68... ...
A $3 million Novartis facility nearby would have workstations to distribute the proprietary data and house several Novartis staff members who would provide technical support for using the data. An original proposal for three adjunct faculty positions for Novartis scientists was subsequently withdrawn, although the university makes this arrangement frequently and it was not a particularly controversial matter.
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From page 69... ...
The university representatives are the vice chancellor for research, who engineered much of this; the dean of the CNR, who was the primary engine behind this; and a member of the faculty, unaffiliated with anyone involved with this work. The unaffiliated role was added at the insistence of the faculty senate.
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From page 70... ...
Indeed, such an official or informal faculty question is rare to nonexistent on the Berkeley campus. The primary issue under debate an issue of great importance at UC Berkeley is maximum freedom for individual investigators.
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From page 71... ...
Faculty Concerns A range of concerns bubbled up spontaneously from the faculty across the university as news spread about the Novartis contract. Much of the concern expressed by e-mails, phone calls, conversations with colleagues, and other approaches was directed to the faculty senate Committee on Research.
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From page 72... ...
And it sent some of the younger faculty and some of the students of the college into a tight political orbit of remarkable intensity. I have been asked, "To what degree are public UC Berkeley funds being used either to support or provide infrastructure for research funded by industry?
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From page 73... ...
Returning to the list of concerns, there is a predictable set of questions on institutional development; that is, what is the effect of such a large-scale activity on graduate and undergraduate education. To what degree have there been resources set aside to support unrestricted graduate fellowships to be allocated by the faculty who are not in the Novartis agreement?
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From page 74... ...
My last point concerns the processes that are put in place to involve stakeholders in receiving information about Novartis-based development and seeking advice for research directions themselves. "Stakeholders" in this context are the general public people without direct financial investment in the program.
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From page 75... ...
Without more thoughtfulness about how to increase public confidence in us as a chemical association, as a nuclear community, as a community of thoughtful academics, or as people who labor in the analytical vineyards we will lose a great deal. I hope that discussions about partnering with industry will have room for such matters because industry has a very important role in countering this loss of confidence.
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From page 76... ...
In CNR' s review of the experiences of other institutions' attempts to establish a relationship between a public land grant university and a major international corporation, what were the lessons learned? What would be the sources of learning for an institutional experimental and observational aspect of a CNR-Novartis evolution?
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From page 77... ...
II. Institutional Development Vis-a-vis Ongoing CAR and Campus Processes and Climate Objective: Avoid or minimize institutional distortion regarding undergraduate teaching, graduate education, and faculty governance.
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From page 78... ...
14. To what degree has there been a "set-aside of resources" for unrestricted graduate fellowships, to be allocated by faculty within PMB or CNR who are not in the Novartis agreement?
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From page 79... ...
To what degree has the availability of Novartis funds affected interactions with federal agencies on capital expenditure matters?
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From page 80... ...
33.How have plans worked out for developing a research capacity, not only to develop new agriculture products and methods, but to provide insights into the consequences of their widespread deployment? 34.How has the Novartis arrangement informed research relationships with the California commodity groups?
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From page 81... ...
Also, there was a $25 million building for UC Berkeley. Todd La Porte: Not exactly; it became a $3 million facility.
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From page 82... ...
As long as our public and our public legislative bodies are either distracted or maliciously disinfesting in analytical capacity, we somehow, as a university and as an analytical community, have to figure out ways of maintaining our analytical capability, and particularly the capacity for freely posing questions. It's the question-posing part that is as important as anything else, and that is hard enough in any environment to maintain.
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From page 83... ...
Second, if the outcome is as expected, is this the only way to provide access to the proprietary data that in this particular case you can't get anywhere else? I don't understand the specifics of the agricultural genomic database.
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From page 84... ...
The other observation is one that might be a little bit flip, but as you were referring to organizational models, you referred to the "predatory" nature of the industrial enterprise. I would refer you to an organizational model presented by microbial communities in nature.
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