ABSTRACT
As part of a wider trend in the scientific community, many research institutions conduct both commercial and academic research, forming partnerships with a diverse array of public-and private-sector agencies. One of the more intractable issues this raises is the difficulty of distinguishing between commercial and academic research, and the increasingly grey divide and overlap between the two research areas. Policies are invaluable in clarifying this distinction and the different ways in which consent for activities should be sought and benefits shared.
