Another new aspect of the policy stipulates that only income post-marketing is exempt from licensing royalties, noting that pre-marketing income like stock options is not exempt.

Rules requiring faculty to disclose their financial ties to students, postdoctoral fellows and other faculty now also require that they disclose such relationships to prospective students, fellows and faculty.

At the same time, some minor liberalizations of the current conflict-of interest regulations were also adopted.

The maximum amount of stock a faculty member may hold in a publicly traded company doing research in a field related to that faculty’s work was raised from $20,000 to $30,000 in recognition of the time that has passed since the $20,000 limit was set. Faculty still may not hold equity in privately-held companies doing research related to their research.

And the maximum amount of fees for consulting and other non-equity purposes a faculty member may receive was raised from $10,000 from each business per year to $20,000 per business annually.

The changes come under a central administration—led by University President Lawrence H. Summers and Provost Steven E. Hyman—that has made “tech transfer,” the transfer of intellectual property from academia to industry, a high priority.

Summers and Hyman have encouraged the practice because they say it expedites the movement of important discoveries into mainstream usage.

Walsh said that the new rules are consistent with the HMS mission of turning discoveries into useable therapies and medicines.

“I think the HMS COI guidelines continue to encourage and enable investigators who have made significant discoveries to get technologies patented and licensed, while protecting the inventors from conflict,” he wrote.

—Staff writer Stephen M. Marks can be reached at marks@fas.harvard.edu.