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Last Update: 04.29.02

Conflict of Interest & Advancing to Candidacy

~ Court Crowther,
Director, Graduate Admissions & Enrollment Mgmt., RGS
Published Spring 2002

It is important for graduate students to become acquainted with a recent change in UCI policy. UCI’s Graduate Council now requires that all graduate students and their faculty be made aware of UCI’s new Conflict of Interest (COI) policy related to graduate education and research. Awareness of the COI issue must be acknowledged formally (in a section of the new Advancement to Candidacy form — see below) prior to the student’s advancement to candidacy examination. In the event that a conflict of interest is identified, and that conflict has the potential to harm the student, the advancement examination can not be given until a Faculty Oversight Member has been appointed to the student’s committee.

In an effort to streamline the Advancement to Candidacy process for doctoral students, the Office of Graduate Studies has incorporated this new COI policy into the existing Ph.D. Form I: Report of the Ph.D. Candidacy Committee. This new form includes more transparent instruction, a more straightforward format, a place for COI acknowledgment, as well as an appendix outlining Advancement to Candidacy and COI policy. The new Ph.D. Form I, which must be used by students advancing in Spring 2002 and thereafter, is available for download from OGS’ Current Student Website Section at: http://www.rgs.uci.edu/grad/students/forms/phdi.pdf.

The motivation for the COI policy for graduate education is outlined in the following Statement on Conflict of Interest component of the new Ph.D. Form I:

"The University wishes to encourage intellectual activity that benefits the academic interests of the student, society, and the institution, and at the same time protects the integrity of the academic and research experience. The purpose of this policy [COI], therefore, is to establish a mechanism to protect the academic interests of graduate students in the event that the financial interest on the part of a Faculty Mentor/Thesis/Dissertation Advisor, relating to a project on which the student is working, raises a conflict of interest issue that may have the potential to harm the academic interests of the graduate student."

More extensive information about COI policy is available in the instructions and appendix (which includes hyperlinks to additional, electronic sources) of the new Ph.D. Form I.

We hope you will find that the new form facilitates your advancement process. Incidentally, we have nearly completed an update of all of our OGS forms to make them more user-friendly. The updated forms, many of which include an appendix outlining relevant policy and procedures, are readily available from OGS WEbsite’s Forms download page ( http://www.rgs.uci.edu/grad/students/forms.htm ). Should you have any questions, please feel free to contact me (crowther@uci.edu).

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