Community COI Portal

Please note: The Community COI Portal is only available to MIT faculty, staff, and students and requires an MIT certificate to access.

The Community COI Portal is designed for faculty, staff, postdocs, and graduate students to help increase understanding of the nexus between common COI issues and MIT activities. The COI Guidance Documents are written through the "COI lens" to help guide discussions and decisions surrounding MIT activities that trigger real or perceived COI issues. Multiple on-line tools have also been designed to help give and gather information efficiently in order to comply with MIT policies and procedures, make more informed decisions, and reduce administrative burden.

  • Faculty COI Guidance Documents address common situations faculty encounter like consulting, visiting scientists, starting a company, anatomy of a COI management plan, etc. In addition, the suite of COI Questionnaires are web-based forms designed to facilitate easy review and approval of Faculty activities by DLC Heads to comply with MIT Policies and Procedures.
  • Administrators are often the first ones faculty and research staff reach out to with COI related questions. These COI Guidance Documents are written to aid discussions and provide COI policy interpretations for common administrative situations such as visiting scientist/research affiliate appointments, sabbaticals/LoA’s, purchasing of goods/services from SFI entity, etc.
  • Postdocs and Researchers comprise a large segment of our research community. These COI Guidance Documents are written on topics addressing their needs with respect to allowed outside professional activities, information on start-ups, etc.
  • Graduate Students have Guidance Documents and COI resources to help with COI questions around outside professional activities, engagement with faculty start-ups, etc.
  • SBIR/STTR Phase 2 Guidance/Exemption Form - MIT recognizes that the SBIR/STTR Programs are intended to meet critical needs of society and to foster economic development, which is congruent with our mission and commitment to the United States.  As a result, if the company’s Phase II research project meets criteria set forth in the guidance document, MIT will consider properly managed COI Exemptions for Phase II awards to be granted. Prior to submitting Phase II applications with the sponsor, PIs are encouraged to review the guidance document, and if their project meets the criteria, download, complete and submit for review the COI Exemption form.
  • Starting a Company is a collection of flow charts and information about first steps to take if you’re thinking about starting a company and how to strike a balance between your MIT institutional responsibilities and engagement with your start-up. These were developed in collaboration with the MIT TLO.
  • Full List of COI Guidance Documents is the entire collection of the COI Guidance Documents in list form. If you don’t know what you’re looking for, start here!

This Portal is for you, the MIT community! We want to hear from you about additional content you would like to see and feedback on what you’ve read so far. Please e-mail coi-help@mit.edu with your comments and feedback.

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