Faculty Responsibility to Students

Faculty Responsibility

Faculty members must not allow any outside professional activities or interests to prevent them from meeting their responsibilities to students as teachers, mentors, or supervisors of research. Please see the UC Principles addressing the rights and obligations associated with future research results.

Student and Postdoc Freedom to Publish

Students’ and postdoctoral scholars’ educational and research programs are to be entirely open. Students and postdocs have the right to publish and freely communicate their research progress and findings. There is to be no delay in submitting dissertations, but a delay may be requested for filing the dissertation in the university library (i.e., making the dissertation publicly available) to allow for a patent application to be filed.

Permissible Student Involvement in Companies

Students and postdocs may undertake educationally related research activities at companies where:

• The faculty adviser does not have a significant financial interest in the company.
• The company does not place any restrictions on the student that conflict with his or her university obligations.
• The student is free to discuss and publish the results of his or her university obligations without delays.
• If requested, UC Davis InnovationAccess will review a patent agreement that a company may require a student to sign.

Student Use of Personal Non-University Time

Students and postdocs have the freedom to decide to use their personal non-university time to work for a company that may require the student to sign a confidentiality agreement and place restrictions on the student’s right to publish as long as the following conditions are met:

• The student is not working at a company in which their mentor or any member of their doctoral committee has a significant financial interest.
• The work at the company is kept completely separate from the student’s UC Davis educational program.