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More Canadian institutions will face controversy over the influence of donors on programmes if they do not rethink their relationship with private funders, warn academics who have studied the relationship between donations and educational institutions. This is following a string of cases over the past decade that have led academics across the country to criticize postsecondary institutions that appear to be willing to share control over their research agenda with private donors.

A former Iowa State University researcher who fabricated the results of an experimental HIV vaccine was sentenced to four years and nine months in prison recently. He was also ordered to pay US$7.2 million to the US National Institutes of Health that funded the research.

A doctoral student in higher education at the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, conducted a sociological research about corruption in higher education. Based on his examination of the 2009 Illinois admissions scandal, which centered on the university’s use of a separate, hidden admissions process to ease the entry of applicants with ties to politicians, donors, and university officials, his paper concludes that administrative misconduct frequently is "an organizational problem that demands organizational solutions."

This was the second annual Strategic Leaders Global Summit sponsored by the Council of Graduate Schools (CGS). Last year's meeting in Banff in Canada resulted in the "Banff Principles" to broadly guide international collaboration in graduate education; this year's summit focused on "best practices" specific to promoting scholarly integrity. Leaders in higher education agreed on issues and actions that have to lead to strengthen scholarly integrity because of the growing globalization of graduate education and research, and discussed on "best practices" to promote scholarly integrity.

A well-known obesity researcher will plead guilty to making material false statements in a 1999 grant application worth $542,000 from the US National Institutes of Health. The researcher, who held various research positions at the University of Vermont (UVM) College of Medicine in Burlington could go to jail for up to 5 years.

Nearly half of the medical-school faculty members who serve on boards charged with protecting volunteers in clinical research also serve as industry consultants, duals roles that raise concerns about potential conflicts of interest, according to a study published today in the journal Academic Medicine. The study found that 47% of the faculty members serving on university panels, also had consulted for industry within the past three years.

The Bush administration proposed guidelines last month that would let research institutions decide whether to restrict researchers' financial interests in studies involving human subjects, and whether such interests should be reported to the research volunteers.