A University Policy is a rule that has been officially sanctioned by the president of Carnegie Mellon University, and that generally has university-wide applicability. A policy may include governing principles, it may either mandate or constrain action, it may ensure compliance with laws, or it may mitigate the university's risk. It must be approved by the President's Council, a senior-level decision-making body of Carnegie Mellon, and ultimately by the president, before it becomes official policy.
Many departmental or divisional procedures and guidelines, although useful and important, do not meet the criteria above, and therefore they are not considered university policies. Some department/division practices are linked to this as a convenience to the Carnegie Mellon community. Some other information, such as the NSF Grant Policy Manual, is not specific to Carnegie Mellon but is included for convenient access.The policies and guidelines presented here are generally broken into two sections. The section at the beginning of each identifies a contact person or department who can help with specific questions about that policy. It may also contain other pertinent information or links to related documents. This section is not part of the official policy, but is merely supplemental information. It is followed by the actual text of the university policy.

 Many funding agencies no longer see teaching, which has traditionally been a central part of a university's mission, as the best way of promoting economic development. This attitude is pushing some universities to change their fundraising strategies to focus on research.This can affect university incentives, mentoring activities and even recruitment policies. In countries like China, 'successful' staff, who bringing in consultancy projects, sell research results to industry or publish in peer-reviewed journals, receive more incentives, such as bonuses or travel allowances.Universities often reduce teaching commitments so that academics can allocate more time to research. This sacrifices both the quality and quantity of teaching. Even with their reduced teaching loads, academics still tend to neglect their responsibilities to educating undergraduates, often offloading teaching duties onto graduate students to release more time for research. This seems to be particularly true in countries like China, the United Kingdom and the United States.

The demands of multiple stakeholders have changed relationships within and between universities as well as with donors and external communities.In the past, governments and funding agencies gave public universities funds for research development and capacity strengthening. But in the global knowledge economy, such 'core' funding has often given way to more business-like relationships. Funders demand that universities in the developed and developing world alike participate more in the world of commerce. They want to see a return-on-investment through research products or knowledge that contributes to social or economic advancement.This, in turn, is driving universities to emphasise applied research sometimes at the expense of basic research and teaching programmes. And some are also favouring short-term projects to produce quick results that can be patented, often starting up their own spin-off companies to advance product development. Risk Management