Policies & Procedures

Maintaining scientific credibility depends on complete and correct authorship, as well as accuracy in reporting the research results. In order to support a culture of integrity and trust, investigators should not take credit for the published or unpublished works of others or refer to such work without attribution and/or permission. The Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's (MSKCC) Authorship Guidelines provide minimum requirements for Authorship and Acknowledgements. Many of these suggested guidelines have been developed based on those established by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (ICMJE).

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center has developed the policies and procedures listed here to ensure that all staff understand the billing process and correct billing practices.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's Code of Conduct has been developed to help you understand and meet the ethical and legal standards we must all follow. It covers a wide range of issues. The Code of Conduct is not intended to replace existing policies and procedures, but rather is to be used in combination with them.

This policy requires staff to report professional and financial interests that they may have with Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center vendors and includes a process whereby Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center reviews these relationships in order to identify and resolve conflicts.

Effort Reporting is the federally-mandated process by which the salary charged to a sponsored project is certified as being reasonable in relation to the effort expended on that project. Although the Effort Reporting System is used for other purposes, such as helping to document effort commitments and NIH salary cap compliance, the chief purpose under OMB A-122 is to ensure that dollars charged to federal projects represent real work performed on the project and are not arbitrarily charged based on budget estimates or fund balances. Effort Reporting is the mandated method of certifying that the effort charged to each award has actually been completed.

This policy ensures that MSKCC submits financial reports to sponsors of research and other scholarly activity, that 1) accurately reflect the actual use of sponsored funds as recorded in the financial records of the institution; and 2) are in compliance with the sponsor's terms and conditions. Achieving compliance with this policy is a responsibility shared by the Principal Investigator/Project Director, department administrators (where applicable), Research Administration, and Finance. 

This policy outlines the review processes and procedures for Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center employees who have made an advance that might constitute an invention or who have developed other types of intellectual property.

The purpose of this policy is to establish guidelines for ethical and appropriate interaction with industry, including acceptance of business courtesies, gifts, financial and in-kind support for department meetings and other events, and contributions. Compliance with this policy is required for all Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center employees. Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center will provide its vendors with written notification of this policy.

The Director of the National Institutes of Health shall require that all investigators funded by the NIH submit or have submitted for them to the National Library of Medicine's PubMed Central an electronic version of their final, peer-reviewed manuscripts upon acceptance for publication, to be made publicly available no later than 12 months after the official date of publication. Provided that the NIH shall implement the public access policy in a manner consistent with copyright law.

Sometimes commercially valuable patentable inventions, copyrightable materials, and tangible property result from research or other work conducted at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center. The Center intends to assure the utilization of such results. This policy governs the management of Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center's intellectual property.

The purpose of this document is to inform the MSKCC research community about the policies and procedures involved in issuing subawards to collaborating entities (e.g., other universities, hospitals, non-profit research institutes, or businesses). Subaward Agreements are used to facilitate performance of and payment for a specific scope of work conducted by a collaborator in support of the primary award received by Sloan-Kettering Institute for Cancer Research (SKI).

Sloan-Kettering Institute postdoctoral researcher titles have been reclassified and term limits have been established to be in compliance with NIH and NSF guidelines. These changes are outlined in detail in the policies and guidelines document and became effective as of July 20, 2008.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center research investigators, faculty, staff, trainees, and students all share in the obligation to retain research data in appropriate form, archive it for a reasonable length of time, and make it available for collaborative research and for review under the appropriate circumstances.

The purpose of this policy is to describe how funds for research at Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center (MSKCC) and other sponsored activities within Sloan-Kettering Institute (SKI) are managed with respect to account establishment and other administrative issues.

Memorial Sloan-Kettering Cancer Center is committed to the responsible conduct of research and has policies and procedures in place for responding to allegations of misconduct in science. Allegations of research misconduct will be reviewed promptly, thoroughly, and objectively, with concern for the rights, reputations, and privacy of all those involved.