Outside Activities (Consulting)

Please note that these policies are currently under review by the Office of the Senior Vice Provost for Research. 
 

Postdoc involvement in outside activities, notably consulting, is subject to the following requirements:

• Consulting agreement: Must include a signed copy of the Harvard consulting addendum, which should then be sent to the compliance unit of the FAS Research Administration Office, at this address: OutsideActivities@fas.harvard.edu.
• No use of Harvard resources: No Harvard facilities or other resources may be used in doing outside consulting work, and this work must be done on a postdoc's own personal time.
• Cannot engage in consulting activities during Harvard 100% appointment on sponsored awards: If the postdoc is expending 100% of their effort on sponsored awards, they are not permitted to engage in outside consulting.
• Update Conflict of Interest (COI) disclosure: If in the reporting population (e.g., NIH or NSF “investigators”), postdocs will need to update their disclosure in https://fcoi.harvard.edu/ to include consulting effort and salary.
• COI management plan if engaged with faculty member’s startup company: The COI management plan requires the Divisional/SEAS Dean’s signature as well as a disclosure to lab members/peers.

Please note that in cases where there is a relationship between the company and the PI or the postdoc, the answer is almost always a hard No, based on fCOI policy.