The guidelines are intended to avoid impediments to the free and open exchange of knowledge, to preserve scholarly standards absent peer review, to assure that industrial sponsorship does not adversely affect graduate student education, and to avoid financial conflicts. The first four documents are closely linked and refer to one another. The fifth document places conditions on research conducted at the University that makes use of materials and data with restricted access. The aim of these conditions is to assure that the materials researchers use in drawing conclusions are available so that disinterested investigators can assess the results and conduct further studies. The credibility and scholarly value of research are diminished when access to biological materials, or to privately held letters and papers, is restricted to chosen researchers.
All researchers have scholarly obligations to their colleagues and coworkers.
Principal investigators with external funding also have legal and ethical obligations to sponsors and to the University in its administrative oversight role. As in the case of conflicts of interest, Federal agencies have adopted their own rules about what constitutes misconduct in research, and what standard of evidence applies. Researchers sponsored by these agencies are subject to both University and agency strictures. Each oversees activities that are subject to city, state, and federal statute. The protection of the community's health, safety, and environment has always been a foremost concern of the University.