Conflicted and confused? Health harming industries and research funding in leading UK universities

Collin, Jeffrey and Wright, Alex and Hill, Sarah and Smith, Kat (2021) Conflicted and confused? Health harming industries and research funding in leading UK universities. BMJ, 374. n1657. ISSN 0959-8138 (https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.n1657)

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Abstract

University researchers face growing expectations to engage with commercial sources of funding. This pressure is likely to increase in the context of the covid-19 squeeze1 and, in the UK, both Brexit and a research impact agenda promoting external collaboration.2 Alongside this, there are efforts to reduce conflicts of interest in research involving pharmaceutical and medical device companies,3 and policies rejecting tobacco industry funding.4 Yet limited attention has been paid to funding from other health damaging industries such as alcohol, gambling, and ultra-processed food and drink. How well are universities equipped to manage such conflicts of interest?

CORE (COnnecting REpositories)