ACADEMIC
FREEDOM AND THE ETHICS OF RESEARCH
I thank the editors for inviting me to discuss the role of the Research Ethics Board (REB) and the relationship between academic freedom and the new ethical guidelines governing research on human subjects. My opinions reflect my experience in overseeing the operations of the REB and trying to ensure that the Acadia community complies with the new guidelines; in offering them, however, I don’t claim to speak for every member of the REB.
In 1998, after much nationwide consultation,
and in order to implement a single, consistent set of ethical research
guidelines, Canada’s three granting Councils—CIHR, NSERC, and SSHRC—adopted the
Tri-Council Policy Statement Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans
(“TCPS,” for short).
The TCPS guidelines apply to any institution,
such as Acadia, which receives funding from any of the three Councils. They require each such institution to
establish an independent REB which reviews the ethics
of all “research involving human subjects which is conducted within, or by members of, the
institution.” Acadia’s REB,
established by the University Senate in 1999, draws its membership from among
faculty, students, and members of the local community. I encourage researchers and other interested
parties to visit the REB’s website <http://ace.acadiau.ca/gradstud/reb> and to consult the
searchable electronic version of the guidelines available there.
The TCPS emerged
principally to govern biomedical and pharmaceutical research, in which the risk
of serious harm to human subjects is at its most substantial; thus, the
guidelines are not tailor-made for an institution such as Acadia, where most of
the research falls into neither of those categories. Acadia’s REB must
therefore take guidelines designed largely for other kinds of research and
adapt them to review projects, most of which come from the social and behavioral sciences, professional studies, and
humanities. In doing so, our foremost
goal has been to ensure ethical conduct in research while minimizing the
intrusiveness and bureaucracy of our procedures and requirements. Recently, the Humanities and Social Sciences
Federation lobbied the Councils to produce a version of the TCPS
which better reflects the nature of research in the social sciences,
humanities, and journalism. I hope that HSSFC gets what it requested.
The goal of the TCPS
was not to codify the sundry research practices and local norms that existed in
1998; the goal, instead, was to replace them with a uniform, nationwide set of
guidelines. Because it would have no
point if it did not at least potentially constrain the conduct of research, the
TCPS inevitably comes up against the essential effort
to preserve academic freedom.
Recognizing this potential conflict, CAUT has proposed a Model Clause, “Application of Tri-Council Policy Statement on Ethical Conduct for Research Involving Humans,” which it recommends for inclusion in faculty Collective Agreements. Nothing illustrates the tensions between academic freedom and the new ethical guidelines better than a comparison of the TCPS and the CAUT Model Clause. I will mention just four of many sources of actual or potential conflict.
First, Model Clause 1.2 would forbid using the TCPS “to circumscribe the academic freedom of researchers as specified [elsewhere in the Collective Agreement].” Article 5.20 of AUFA’s Tenth Collective Agreement guarantees the freedom to “carry out research…in a reasonable manner without interference,” while the TCPS is largely designed to interfere with research (even if otherwise reasonable) that the REB sees as unethical. Depending on the interpretation of Article 5.20, the potential conflict here is serious and fundamental, even without the additional language of the CAUT Model Clause. I don’t pretend to know how to resolve it.
Second, Model Clause 1.3 would
deny to the REB “the power to recommend discipline,
to impose sanctions or discipline or to cause discipline to be imposed on
members of the bargaining unit.” As I
interpret this clause, it conflicts with the REB’s
obligation under TCPS Article 2.1 to “terminate”
ongoing research that is found to be unethical, an obligation the REB cannot satisfy if it cannot recommend discipline or impose sanctions. Indeed, the Councils have advised REBs that when they discover ongoing unethical research
they should direct the institution to freeze the researcher’s funds. It’s hard to see how doing so would not count
as a form of discipline or sanction.
Third, Model Clause 2.1 would deny to the REB the power “to reject any proposal on the grounds of…its
scholarly merit,” while TCPS Article 1.5 requires the
REB to “satisfy itself” regarding the research design
of all projects which pose more than minimal risk of harm and allows the REB to “assume complete responsibility for the scholarly
merit” of a proposal. The TCPS, therefore, can require rejecting a proposal for poor
research design and allows rejecting a proposal for other deficiencies in
scholarly merit. Model Clause 2.1
reflects a strong and sensible commitment to academic freedom, but its
inconsistency with the TCPS still needs resolving.
Finally, Model Clause 3.4 would allow an
Appeals Board to hear appeals of REB decisions on
both procedural and substantive grounds.
The Councils, on the other hand, have publicly stated that appeals
should be considered on procedural grounds only, and it’s easy to see why. Allowing substantive appeals essentially sets
up two REBs
and undermines the first of them: try the first REB;
if for any reason you don’t like the result, try the second.
Again, Acadia’s REB
consists of faculty members, students, and community representatives who share
the values of the University; like CAUT, we emphatically support academic
freedom and the effort to preserve it.
As members of the REB, however, we share an
obligation with the University, imposed by TCPS
Articles 1.2, 1.3, and 4.1, to protect the REB’s
independence from outside pressure. The
resulting conflict is one that all of us on the REB
confront from time to time. The National
Council on Ethics in Human Research, the agency chiefly responsible for
monitoring nationwide compliance with the TCPS,
warned CAUT some time ago that the Model Clause would “incapacitate REBs” and “seriously compromise” the independent ethical
review of research. In my opinion, this
conflict must be resolved at the national level in consultations between CAUT
and the Councils. Meanwhile, it’s
fortunate that our Collective Agreement does not expose Acadia to the charge of
non-compliance, and the severe penalties that might result, by containing the
language of the Model Clause.
The TCPS is hardly a flawless document. It is philosophically somewhat suspect, only dubiously coherent, inadequately specific, and clumsily written. One might also question the legitimacy of having to apply the TCPS to all research, whether or not funded by the Councils: in theory, a persistently non-compliant researcher at Acadia could cause the University to lose all of its Council funding, even if the researcher herself receives no funding at all from the Councils or from the University. As I understand it, the Councils use a “dirty hands” argument to justify this blanket enforcement mechanism: a single unethical researcher allegedly taints the whole institution. I have heard one administrator defend the blanket policy by insisting that “the Councils can put whatever restrictions they like on the use of their money.” That’s an unfortunately common mistake. It’s not the Councils’ money; it’s your money and mine as taxpayers, and not everything goes in the use of taxpayers’ money. Be that as it may, the current TCPS governs all human-subjects research in Canada. While the internal flaws of the TCPS are being corrected and its implications for academic freedom are being confronted, Acadia’s REB will continue trying to achieve compliance as unobtrusively as we can.
Steve Maitzen
Chair,
Acadia University Research Ethics Board