Confidentiality and scientific publication

It is natural and often vital for research assignments and joint research projects to be carried out with a certain degree of confidentiality. As a university employee, you are bound not only by the confidentiality that has been agreed upon for the project but also by confidentiality regulations that applies to the university according to Swedish law. This may imply limitations to how you are allowed to discuss the project with others and how you are allowed to publish the results.

The position of the university is that it will never accept commissions or to participate in collaborations if it means that the results cannot be scientifically published by the participating researcher within a reasonable amount of time. This means that even if you don’t pertain to publish the results from a certain project, it is nonetheless important that the project agreement include the right to be able to do so. This is to ensure that the university’s integrity cannot be called into question and that no inferior examples will affect researchers in future agreements.

Think about whether you feel you are at ease with the confidentiality clauses of the agreement. Will you be able, for example, to communicate information to others to the extent you need to?

The agreement will almost always contain rules for how the results are to be published. These often imply that publication may be delayed for a certain amount of time. Does this period of time seem reasonable to you? If there are doctoral candidates in the project, it is especially important that the time period be reasonable, since delayed publication can lead to a delayed degree.