The MSRB protects and strengthens the municipal bond market, enabling access to capital, economic growth, and societal progress in tens of thousands of communities across the country. Our highest priority is to fulfill the MSRB’s congressional mandate to protect investors, issuers and the public interest by promoting a fair and efficient market and ensuring access to capital for communities across the country.
The MSRB produces research reports, educational materials, and other publications that examine municipal market topics and provide data and objective analysis to assist market participants, policymakers and the public in developing a deeper understanding of the municipal securities market. To further expand the municipal market research being conducted by the MSRB, the MSRB supports an Academic Program and the position of Visiting Scholar. This document provides information for applicants to the MSRB Academic Program and the position of Visiting Scholar.
Program Goals
The MSRB Academic Program supports the organization’s commitment to enhancing municipal market transparency and provides an additional means for the MSRB to serve as an objective resource on the municipal market. The MSRB believes that a structure whereby interested academics have the necessary staff access and support to conduct in-depth analyses on the municipal market data collected by the MSRB may generate additional insights and findings regarding the municipal market. It is anticipated that the work developed as part of the MSRB Academic Program will inform municipal market regulation, provide municipal market stakeholders with a deeper understanding of the current municipal market structure, and assist in identifying new municipal market trends, issues and emerging practices.
General Structure
The visiting scholar, employing academic institution and MSRB will agree to the scope of work and structure of research for a negotiated period of time (“research period”). The visiting scholar will continue to be paid by the academic institution and not by the MSRB during the agreed upon research period. The academic institution will be responsible for all required income tax withholdings related to such payment, as well as any benefits provided. The MSRB will not be required to reimburse the academic institution for the visiting scholar’s services during the research period. The MSRB will also not be responsible for providing the visiting scholar with medical, dental or vision insurance, or any other benefits.
The length and structure of, and other terms relating to, the research period will be negotiated on a case-by-case basis. It is expected that most research periods will be within a six-to-nine-month range, but longer periods may be structured, if required.
Application for Visiting Scholar Position
Applicants interested in the Visiting Scholar position are required to submit a brief cover letter outlining their desired area or topic of study, as well as relevant experience or past research in the municipal market to visitingscholar@msrb.org.
Intellectual Property and Ownership of Work Product
The visiting scholar is responsible for engaging in research as agreed to in a tri-party letter agreement among the MSRB, the academic institution and the visiting scholar (the “Supplemental Letter Agreement”), together with an MSRB Academic Historical Transaction Data Product Agreement (unless other documentation is mutually agreed upon, which could modify the information below in this section).
Work product and all materials, including reports, program code or other data analysis tools produced by the visiting scholar during the research period will be the property of the visiting scholar. The MSRB will have a limited, non-exclusive, perpetual, non-transferable worldwide license to display published work product on msrb.org. The MSRB will include a disclaimer stating that the views expressed in it are of the author and not of MSRB staff or Board, and such other disclaimer language as the MSRB may determine.
Confidentiality
During the research period, the visiting scholar may receive confidential and/or proprietary information relating to, among other things, the MSRB, and its internal policies and practices. During and after the research period, the visiting scholar will be obligated to keep in strict confidence all confidential information and not use any confidential information for the benefit of the academic institution or any other third party. Accordingly, visiting scholar will be required to sign the Supplemental Letter Agreement which will contain confidentiality provisions applicable to the visiting scholar individually (and also may include particular data security provisions).
