Nondisclosure Agreements and Confidentiality in the Review of Proposals and Manuscripts

Faculty members are routinely asked by funding agencies or foundations to review research proposals submitted by researchers at other institutions.  In the course of agreeing to review, the reviewer is normally asked to sign a nondisclosure agreement that requires the reviewer to keep the contents of the reviewed materials confidential. The same holds true in the review of manuscripts for journals. It is important that the signee abide by the terms of these agreements.  The federal agencies take these agreements pertaining to proposal review very seriously and have recently reiterated these confidentiality requirements to the academic community.  It is the expectation of the University of Florida that faculty serving as reviewers understand and abide by the terms of these nondisclosure agreements.  

It is not required that these nondisclosure agreements for proposal or manuscript review be reviewed by central administration.  If a faculty member has questions regarding the terms of any nondisclosure agreement they are asked to sign prior to proposal review, they should contact Stephanie Gray in the Division of Sponsored Programs, or Colin Mailloux in the General Counsel. 

Please note that nondisclosure/confidentiality agreements for other business purposes must be reviewed by DSP or General Counsel before execution.