Office for Responsible Outside Interests

Below, please find a list of the potential points of disclosure. 

COC Form – Outside Activity

If your seminars meet the definition of Outside Commitment, you should submit a COC form in eDisclosure to get prior approval to engage in the Outside Activity.

Outside Commitments: (1) are professional and other activities that are related to a University Employee’s professional expertise, outside of their University duties and responsibilities; (2) are for the benefit of an external entity or individual and are not covered by a fully executed written agreement between the University and the external entity; and (3) require a time commitment. Outside Commitments include Outside Employment, independent contracts for consulting services, private consulting groups comprised of University Employees, volunteer/pro bono work, appointments at postsecondary educational institutions, and foreign components, as that term may be updated by the University’s Office for Responsible Outside Interests.

You can also use this decision tree to determine if the activity is an Outside Commitment: Outside Commitment Decision Tree.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Interests

If you do end up receiving a payment of any amount, an in-kind contribution or Other Support, it must be disclosed as a Foreign Interest.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Travel

PHS and Dept of Energy Investigators only: Must disclose any reimbursed or sponsored travel related to your institutional responsibilities, regardless of the amount, unless received from a Federal, state, or local government agency of the United States; a domestic Institution of Higher Education; or a domestic research institute that is affiliated with a domestic Institution of Higher Education.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Affiliations

As part of your eDisclosure submissions, you must disclose whether you have a foreign affiliation.

Below, please find a list of the potential points of disclosure. 

COC Form – Outside Activity

If any of your activities during your travel meet the definition of Outside Commitment, you should submit a COC form in eDisclosure to get prior approval to engage in the Outside Activity.

Outside Commitments: (1) are professional and other activities that are related to a University Employee’s professional expertise, outside of their University duties and responsibilities; (2) are for the benefit of an external entity or individual and are not covered by a fully executed written agreement between the University and the external entity; and (3) require a time commitment. Outside Commitments include Outside Employment, independent contracts for consulting services, private consulting groups comprised of University Employees, volunteer/pro bono work, appointments at postsecondary educational institutions, and foreign components, as that term may be updated by the University’s Office for Responsible Outside Interests.

You can also use this decision tree to determine if the activity is an Outside Commitment: Outside Commitment Decision Tree.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Interests

If you do end up receiving a payment of any amount, an in-kind contribution or Other Support, it must be disclosed as a Foreign Interest.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Travel

PHS and Dept of Energy Investigators only: Must disclose any reimbursed or sponsored travel related to your institutional responsibilities, regardless of the amount, unless received from a Federal, state, or local government agency of the United States; a domestic Institution of Higher Education; or a domestic research institute that is affiliated with a domestic Institution of Higher Education.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Affiliations

As part of your eDisclosure submissions, you must disclose whether you have a foreign affiliation.

Below, please find a list of the potential points of disclosure.

COC Form – Outside Activity

If your visits or seminars to Japanese universities meet the definition of Outside Commitment, you should submit a COC form in eDisclosure to get prior approval to engage in the Outside Activity.

Outside Commitments: (1) are professional and other activities that are related to a University Employee’s professional expertise, outside of their University duties and responsibilities; (2) are for the benefit of an external entity or individual and are not covered by a fully executed written agreement between the University and the external entity; and (3) require a time commitment. Outside Commitments include Outside Employment, independent contracts for consulting services, private consulting groups comprised of University Employees, volunteer/pro bono work, appointments at postsecondary educational institutions, and foreign components, as that term may be updated by the University’s Office for Responsible Outside Interests.

You can also use this decision tree to determine if the activity is an Outside Commitment: Outside Commitment Decision Tree.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Interests

If you do end up receiving a payment of any amount, an in-kind contribution or Other Support, it must be disclosed as a Foreign Interest.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Travel

PHS and Dept of Energy Investigators only: Must disclose any reimbursed or sponsored travel related to your institutional responsibilities, regardless of the amount, unless received from a Federal, state, or local government agency of the United States; a domestic Institution of Higher Education; or a domestic research institute that is affiliated with a domestic Institution of Higher Education.

COI Disclosure – Foreign Affiliations

As part of your eDisclosure submissions, you must disclose whether you have a foreign affiliation.

No, you do not have to disclose your parent’s Outside Interests. 

Federal regulations only require that you disclose you and your Family Member’s Outside Interests.  Family Member means one's spouse, domestic partner and/or dependent child. 

 All Investigators on each subaward will be required to complete the training and disclosure requirements. An Investigator means any person who shares the responsibility of Conducting Research. Conducting Research includes the design, development, testing, evaluation, conduct, reporting, review, and oversight of a program of scientific inquiry.  Each Investigator will need to submit an individual disclosure.

In case helpful, below is a brief overview specific to subrecipients but more Information for Non-UA Subcontractors, Consultants, and Collaborators can  be found on our website.

Subrecipients will be presented with two options. They will need to either (1) have an implemented and enforced federally-compliant conflict of interest policy and process and agree to be responsible for compliance under their policy and pursuant to the subcontract or consulting agreement including reporting requirements (our office reviews each subrecipient’s policy to determine it is compliant) or (2) comply with UArizona’s Conflicts of Interest & Commitment Policy (more details on the fees that apply can be accessed from link above).  Our office will be in direct contact with the subrecipients to share a complete overview of all the related requirements. Our office will also provide any assistance and guidance the subrecipient may need.

University Employees whose FTE is 0.50 or greater, are required to disclose any activity that meets the definition of an Outside Commitment or Outside Employment by submitting a disclosure of Outside Commitment or Employment (COC form) via eDisclosure. University approval is required prior to full-time University Employees (0.50 FTE or greater) entering into an Outside Commitment or Outside Employment (regardless of whether or not compensated for the activity).

• The Outside Commitment Decision Tree on our Disclosure Requirements webpage link may be of assistance to you in determining whether the activity meets the definition of an Outside Commitment. More information on Outside Activity can also be found on our website.

Additionally, as an Investigator, one of the requirements is disclosure of Outside Interests (Significant Financial, Significant Personal and Foreign Interests). You can find an overview of the Disclosure Requirements on our website including Disclosure Table resources which outlines the disclosure guidelines.

Consulting Agreements

Our website has information related to Consulting Agreements including a Consulting Agreement Addendum that the University developed as a resource that University employees can use as an addendum to any agreement that you sign or can be used as guidance on common issues that may arise in a consulting arrangement that may relate to your university employment. 

NIH describes Budgetary Overlap as: "Budgetary Overlap occurs when duplicate or equivalent budgetary items (e.g., equipment, salary) are requested in an application but are already provided by another source."

NIH describes Scientific Overlap as: "Scientific Overlap occurs when substantially similar research is proposed in more than one application or is submitted to two or more different funding sources for review and funding consideration; or a specific research objective and the experimental design for accomplishing that objective are the same or closely related in two or more applications or awards, regardless of funding source."

Financial Conflict of Interest (FCOI) means an Outside Interest is Related to, or can be perceived to be Related to, an individual’s institutional responsibilities.

FCOI determinations answer the question: Could it reasonably appear to someone outside of UA (e.g., front page of the newspaper) that a decision made in the conduct of research was influenced by your Outside Interest?  That influence could affect the design of the project, a decision to exclude data, a decision to delay publication of research results, a decision to overemphasize or underemphasize research results, etc. for the benefit of your Outside Interest.

Related to is a defined term that refers to the condition in which it may reasonably appear that decisions made by the Investigator in the performance of his/her institutional responsibilities could directly and significantly affect the value of his/her Significant Financial Interests or be in conflict with Significant Personal Interests or Foreign Interests.

Relatedness includes situations in which an Investigator’s Outside Interests would reasonably appear to affect, or to be affected by, the individual’s Research or other institutional responsibilities.

Relatedness is not a judgment on whether an Investigator would deliberately make choices in the Conduct of Research or the performance of their Institutional Responsibilities based on considerations related to their Outside Interest. Rather, “Relatedness” refers to the condition in which it may reasonably appear that choices made in the Conduct of Research or other performance of the individual’s institutional responsibilities could be directly and significantly influenced by the existence of an Outside Interest.