CYIL vol. 14 (2023)

CYIL 14 (2023) CONFLICT OF INTEREST IN MEDICAL RESEARCH Financing research from public resources is regulated by Act No. 130/2002 Coll., on public funding of research and development , together with Act No. 134/2016 Coll., on award of public contracts (further to be referred to as the Public Contracts Award Act ), especially as regards procedural requirements for the award of public contracts. Under S. 21 Para 1 and 4 of the Act on public funding of research and development , the members of the committee for admission and the established expert bodies for evaluation of the applications must not be biased with regard to the research topic and to the applicants. In particular, they must not be involved in the preparation of the research project; they must not have any personal interest regarding the funding decision of the project and they must not be in any relationship to the project applicants. According to S. 44 Para 1 of the Public Contracts Award Act , it is the responsibility of the contracting authority (i.e., the funder) to eliminate conflicts of interest in the award of public contracts and to adopt measures to rectify if conflict of interest is established. Conflict of interest is described as a situation where the interests of persons who are either participating in the procedure of the award of public contracts, or who have or could potentially have an influence on the result, threaten the persons’ impartiality or independence with regard to the procedure (e.g., the applicants for a research grant). The term “interests” mentioned above is further defined by the Public Contracts Award Act as interest to gain a personal benefit or interest to diminish financial or other benefit of the contracting authority. 104 If a conflict of interest occurred, the contracting authority may exclude the participant from the public contract award, based on the participant’s ineligibility, as long as there are no other measures to rectify available, except for the cancellation of the whole procedure. 105 After the public contract is concluded, the participant (contractor) may be excluded by the contracting authority due to the contractor’s conflict of interest. 106 Unlike in the US or on the EU level, the biggest Czech research public funding agencies, i.e., the Czech Science Foundation and the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic, have only restricted instruments put in place for identifying and managing conflicts of interest of researchers applying for and participating in grant projects. Both the Agencies were contacted via email and more information was requested about their internal conflict-of-interest policies, as this information is difficult to access publicly. According to the information obtained upon request, the Czech Science Foundation focuses mainly on avoiding research duplicity and on setting up a conflict-of-interest free and independent evaluation process of grant applications. Therefore, the applicants (and co-researchers) shall disclose their affiliations in the previous 3 years, declare that they have not accepted and will not accept any other grant for the same research topic, disclose all the grants supported by the Czech Science Foundation in which they have participated in the previous 5 years, and disclose all other research projects publicly funded under the Act on public funding of research and development closely related to the current research topic. In addition, attention is paid to whether the conditions set by Act No. 159/2006 Coll., on conflict of interest , are met, regarding the incompatibility of the role of a public officer with some activities (e.g., participating in public contracts’ awards under S. 4b of the Act on conflict

104 S. 44 Para 3 of the Public Contracts Award Act. 105 S. 48 of the Public Contracts Award Act. 106 S. 124 Para 3 of the Public Contracts Award Act.

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