The recent exchanges on RIM in the university context encouraged me to do a little online searching on the ownership of research data in the academy.  Given the growing multi institution collaboration this can become quite complex.  For example suppose a dozen universities collaborate on a joint study.  They establish a database that is managed by University A, backed up by University B, and audited by University C.  Who owns the data?  Just to make it interesting suppose there are 10 funding sources not including support given by the involved universities.

In searching around I found the following Australian study that attempts to address this issue.

http://eprints.qut.edu.au/archive/00008865/01/8865.pdf

I also discovered some sources believe that it is a big mistake for the academy to commercialize science because it introduces significant incentives toward research bias and results in obstructing the free flow of research data.

Some point to the example of Jonas Salk.  I have included a quote from Wikipedia below to illustrate the point.


"During his life, Salk worked in New York</wiki/New_York>, Michigan</wiki/Michigan>, Pittsburgh</wiki/Pittsburgh,_Pennsylvania> and California</wiki/California>. In his later career, he devoted much energy toward the development of an AIDS vaccine</wiki/AIDS_vaccine>.
While being interviewed by Edward R. Murrow</wiki/Edward_R._Murrow> on See It Now</wiki/See_It_Now> in 1955, Salk was asked: "Who owns the patent on this vaccine?" Surprised by the question's assumption of the requirement of a profit motive for his creation, he responded: "There is no patent. Could you patent the sun?"

David Gaynon



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