Partners
- COVID-19 Industry Resources Form
- Guiding Principles for Corporate Relationships
- APIC Partners
- APIC Strategic Partner Program
- Patron Program Benefits
Guiding principles for corporate relationships
APIC’s mission is to create a safer world through prevention of infection. APIC advances its mission through patient safety, implementation science, competencies and certification, advocacy, and data standardization to promote improved patient outcomes and research related to infection control and prevention. APIC may promote these efforts by forming corporate relationships and accepting external funds such as grants, sponsorships, or gifts in support of activities that are aligned with its mission.
External funds from corporations and other entities help APIC to improve the quality of educational conferences and other meetings by allowing the association to provide honoraria, scholarships and awards, to offer general programming that might otherwise be financially out of reach, and to provide an array of value-added educational products and services to members that advance the goals of the association.
There are many typical business relationships into which associations such as APIC may enter with corporations and other parties. There may be overlap among approaches and hybrid arrangements could exist, but some of the most common are:
- Sponsorship: APIC may accept financial or in-kind support for a specific activity such as education, research, an information product, a member service or an awareness building activity.
- Strategic alliance: A mutually beneficial relationship may be established between APIC and another party. Strategic alliances are most often longer term, collaborative efforts designed to advance a shared mission or vision. APIC’s Strategic Partner Program is one such example.
- Health promotion: APIC may work with another organization to promote improvements in health or healthcare. APIC’s advocacy work and our participation in the Trust for America’s Health “Ready or Not” Survey follow this model.
- Licensing: APIC may authorize another party to develop, produce, market and/or distribute a product that carries the APIC brand. The recent translation of the APIC Text into Japanese fits this model.
Guiding principles
No matter what type of business or corporate funding relationship APIC enters, all relationships must adhere strictly to certain core principles:
- Endorsement: APIC will not endorse any commercial product or service.
- Mission-related purpose: APIC’s relationships with corporations and other entities must have a meaningful mission related purpose or benefit.
- Independence: APIC staff and members will exercise independent judgment in all decisions related to corporate partnerships. For all educational and product offerings, APIC will retain control over the selection of topics, educational content, speakers and related materials.
- Disclosure: APIC will disclose all sponsored activities that are partially or completely financed by external funds, including, but not limited to, presentations, educational offerings, publications, and research grants. Speakers should disclose whether any part of their presentation resulted from external funding and whether they have any personal financial interest in the subject matter of the presentation.
- Confidentiality: APIC representatives will not disclose proprietary or confidential information of corporate partners that may be provided in the course of a relationship.
- Exclusivity: APIC may grant exclusivity to a corporation or other party for a particular activity for a specified time on the basis that there is sufficient benefit to APIC. In general there will be no prohibition against APIC engaging in similar types of activities involving competing corporations or products.
- Consistency: APIC will not enter into a relationship with a corporation or other party that is inconsistent with APIC’s principles, public positions, policies or standards.
- Intellectual property: Where possible and appropriate, APIC will reserve the right to the intellectual property deriving from projects that it sponsors and/or manages.
- Research: APIC will retain control over the selection of research topics that are financed with external funds, selection of project personnel and other activities for the conduct of research activities for which external funding is accepted. APIC may accept restricted funds from projects that it sponsors and/or manages.
- Awards: Awardees will be selected based on criteria established by APIC. The sponsor may have limited input in the selection criteria, but APIC will retain control over selection of the award recipient.
- Acknowledgments: Acknowledgment is an important aspect of delivering value to corporate supporters. Acknowledgement may be accomplished via a variety of vehicles including APIC publications, meeting materials and signage, reports and other materials, as appropriate. These acknowledgments will not advertise any products or services of the supporting organization. Ultimate decisions regarding acknowledgement rests with APIC.
- Branding: APIC will not allow the use of its name, logo or other identifying marks to promote any commercial product or service. Any usage of the APIC name, logo or related identifying marks in a corporate relationship shall be reviewed and approved by APIC, in writing, in advance of their use.
- Advertising: Prevention Strategist, APIC E-News, Infection Connection: Focusing on Long-Term Care and the American Journal of Infection Control (AJIC) accept advertisements for products and services. Final judgment regarding the appropriateness and acceptability of advertisements rests with the editorial staff.