Appendix

Disclosure of Unavoidable Conflict of Interest

The conflict-of-interest policy of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine (www.nationalacademies.org/coi) prohibits the appointment of an individual to a committee like the one that authored this Consensus Study Report if the individual has a conflict of interest that is relevant to the task to be performed. An exception to this prohibition is permitted only if the National Academies determine that the conflict is unavoidable and the conflict is promptly and publicly disclosed.

A determination that an individual has a conflict of interest is not an assessment of that individual’s actual behavior or character or ability to act objectively despite the conflicting interest.

The committee concluded that an issue exists concerning one member of the committee, Clive Neal, who has announced the intention of proposing a mission concept in response the Lunar Geophysical Network mission theme if it appears in the New Frontiers 5 announcement of opportunity. Direct involvement with one of the mission targets discussed in the report was judged to be an issue. This potential conflict was discussed with Dr. Neal and the members of the committee. It was generally agreed that the most appropriate action was for Dr. Neal recuse himself from the committee’s deliberations concerning the findings to be contained in the short report. However, it was also agreed that given Dr. Neal’s subject-matter expertise, it was appropriate for him to contribute to the report’s factual discussion of the science goals to be addressed by a Lunar Geophysical Network.

The National Academies determined that the experience and expertise of the individual was needed for the committee to accomplish the task it had been given. Therefore, the National Academies concluded that the conflict was unavoidable and publicly disclosed it through the National Academies Current Projects System (www8.nationalacademies.org/cp).