Tip Sheet Volume 1:1

Recommendations for Oral Presentations
Based on Industry-Funded Research 

Research projects conducted using industry funding have special considerations that need to be taken into account before giving internal or external seminars or other oral presentations.

External Content Review

Industry scientists will want to review the slides and/or other presentation materials. The purpose for this review is:

1) To determine if there is any new intellectual property reported in the seminar that the industry wants to protect.

2) To determine if any industry confidential information is being discussed in the presentation, and to make sure it is properly coded or removed as appropriate.

Most contracts contain language about the number of days required to review publications, which include both written papers and oral presentations. Because oral presentations are usually drafted near the time of the presentation, the 30- or 60- day review time typical for written articles is not reasonable. A two-week review time is recommended for oral presentations. The review should be conducted on the CONTENT of the seminar, type of information and/or data being presented, and not on the final slides. If the data to be presented will be "hot off the press" then an idea of expected results can be used for the industry review.

Contact with the companies, for the review purpose, can be handled directly by faculty members or via the Biotechnology Industrial Liaison, listed below.

Internal Content Review

In general, a disclosure should be made to ISURF as soon as an inventive idea can be reasonably shown to work. It is especially important that ISURF be notified about all planned presentations (internal and external) that 1) contain information related to intellectual property previously disclosed; or 2) describe intellectual property that has not been disclosed to ISURF but could/should be protected. In these instances, the information for the presentation should be provided to ISURF before, or at the same time, it is provided to the company for review.

Give Credit Where Credit Is Due

Because this research is funded by industry, it is necessary to include an acknowledgement in the seminar.

In addition, for internal communications, any industry-confidential material presented, orally or otherwise, should be clearly marked CONFIDENTIAL. The audience should be reminded of the confidential nature of the information and that it should not be shared with persons outside the university. If industry-confidential information needs to be disclosed to people outside of the university, a signed confidentiality agreement is required between industry and the outside party.

Note: These are general guidelines and are sufficient for most research contracts. However, some contracts may have special requirements. To determine the specific requirements of an industry you are working with, ask any questions, or get assistance with the review process, please contact:

Lisa Lorenzen
Biotechnology Industrial Liaison
1210 Molecular Biology Building
Phone: (515) 294-0926
Email: llorenze@iastate.edu