Delay and secrecy: does industry sponsorship jeopardize disclosure of academic research?

"Long-run trends suggest a broad shift is taking place in the institutional financing structure that supports academic research. According to data compiled by the OECD, industry sources are financing a growing share of academic research while “core” public funding is generally shrinking.1 This ongoing shift from public to private sponsorship is a cause for concern because these sponsorship relationships are fundamentally different. Available evidence suggests that industry financing does not simply replace dwindling public money, but imposes additional restrictions on academic researchers. In particular, industry sponsors frequently limit disclosure of research findings, methods, or materials by delaying or banning public release (Blumenthal et al., 1996; Cohen et al., 1998; Thursby and Thursby, 2007; Gans and Murray, 2012) ..."