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The Intellectual Property Charter, which was born out of numerous internal discussions and consultations and approved in 2003, sets out three founding principles:
- the protection and conservation of common heritage in the public sector often requires obtaining property rights. INRA’s proactive patent policy is therefore not only compatible with the fulfilment of its objectives, but also necessary;
- the nation’s genetic resources, a common heritage, must be protected and developed by the public research sector, which must also regulate their use;
- INRA will endeavour to put forth proposals and set the example, thereby playing a pioneering role in informing French and European lawmakers and regulatory authorities about intellectual property.
Parallel to its research activities for the private and public sectors, INRA must also make impartial assessments, sometimes on the same topics. Its research activities and assessments are compatible as long as there is an established code of ethics for the organisation’s staff and appropriate work methods, including:
- transparency in expert committees with regard to private contracts that INRA experts are involved in;
- specific rules on incompatibility;
- guarantees about the multidisciplinary, open-debate nature of the collective expert opinions provided by INRA.
INRA strives to maintain a balance between its different partnerships and urges its researchers to always declare any potential conflict of interest.
Within the framework of their activities, INRA researchers make choices that can have consequences not only for themselves, but for their colleagues, the Institute and society as a whole. The rules of ethics take into account the recommendations of the INRA-CIRAD Common Advisory Committee for Ethics in Agricultural Research.
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