Importance of identifying and managing COI
It is important for institutions to have policies in place to adequately address and manage conflicts of interest. Policies assist in maintaining public trust. According to Cigarroa et al (2018). “A Process must be established to ensure research is not affected by any financial interest of the researcher and that no financial interest exists for the institution or the institutions key decision makers that could cloud otherwise open and honest decisions regarding the institutions research mission.” The same could be applied to non-financial conflicts of interest, although it is usually with financial conflict of interest, that the most egregious violations of ethics occur.
It is important that there is consistency between organisations and institutions. All institutions need to address conflict of interest in the same way. Furthermore, full disclosure is needed to the participants who are enrolled in the studies so that participants can make informed decisions regarding their participation (Fink, 2020). Lastly, the committees and institutions main responsibility is to protect the integrity of the research. Therefore, it would be their role to provide full disclosure and explanation regarding the relationships between institutions and investigators to external entities especially since either of them can directly or indirectly affect research judgement. Furthermore, volunteers considering participating in research should be informed about possible conflict of interest and how they will be managed (Braff, 2010).