Report on Ethics: Recommendation #4

Introduction

The NABC should support these efforts of member institutions by sponsoring regular workshops or conferences on ethical issues, aiding in the development of modules and teaching and public education materials, and aiding in the dissemination of materials in both printed and electronic form.

There have been numerous points in discussing the above recommendations where the need for or efficiency of collaboration among NABC member institutions has been noted. The NABC itself is well poised to be both a vehicle and a facilitator for such collaboration. While the specific programs that the NABC would sponsor or provide should be identified by those who come after this ad hoc committee, we would note four general programmatic areas in which the NABC could provide the institutional and financial impetus for support of ethical issues.

Activities Organized and Funded Through Member Institutions

Given its current organizational configuration and funding base, the NABC could sponsor occasional or regular events that would support the above recommendations. On an annual basis, the Executive Committee could form an ad hoc committee to organize and hold a workshop open to faculty from individual member institutions and to the general public (on a differential fee basis), much as the annual meetings are currently planned. A clear model for this sort of activity exists in the workshops held for many years at Iowa State University, and more recently on the campuses of Illinois University, Michigan State University and Purdue University. These "summer institutes" are designed to help faculty implement the modules option described in Recommendation 1. These institutes have been funded by the Bioethics Program at Iowa State and by a grant from the National Science Foundation. Current programs provide a financial incentive to all participants, and budgets run in the neighborhood of $30,000 in direct costs. Yet if the incentive payments were eliminated from the budget, it seems likely that one such institute could be run each year on a budget made up of $1000 contributions from each member institution, provided member institutions covered travel costs for their faculty to participate. The Committee recommends that the Executive Committee carefully consider such an opportunity for effect use of NABC funds before electing to reduce current membership fees.

Activities Organized and Funded with Foundation Support

As noted, several member institutions have received external grants from government sources to support workshop and public education activities. Partnering with the NABC could enhance the competitiveness of these proposals even further. The NABC could be particularly helpful in making initial contacts with private foundations that might be interested in supporting these activities.

Activities Organized and Funded with Industry Support

The food and agricultural biotechnology industry is itself a potential source for ethics-related programming. The catch to this is that anyone who would take the lead in organizing an ethics conference or workshop would need some distance from an industry funding source in order to have the freedom necessary to conduct a credible ethics activity. The NABC itself could be the organization that would provide this screen, soliciting funds from industry which would be put into an NABC account designated for ethics programming. This would allow corporate clients to make contributions to a worthy cause, and it is plausible to think that substantial funds could be raised simply by writing the officers of biotech, seed and pharmaceutical companies. The funds could then be awarded on a re-grant basis to member schools who wished to undertake ethics programming. The ethics programming account and the process of submitting, evaluating and approvals for re-grant proposals would make the NABC effort function as a blind trust, screening industry influence and giving the organizers of ethics activities independence and autonomy.