CAUT | ACPPU
Canadian Association of University Teachers
| Harry Crowe Foundation conference — Protecting the Integrity of Academic Work |
| (Wednesday, November 07, 2007)
- The objectivity of scholarly research is threatened as never before by the commercialization of research and influx of huge corporate grants, but solutions are elusive, and for some perhaps, a bitter pill to swallow. So concluded the over 90 researchers, teachers and students drawn to the second Harry Crowe conference, co-hosted recently by the Canadian Association of University Teachers. Keynote speaker Sheldon Krimsky noted that prior to the 1980s, the words “scientist,” and “conflict of interest,” were simply never heard together in the same sentence. He said that no longer holds true, and asked participants to consider “if corporate-sponsored research affects or endangers public health?” Krimsky, Professor of Urban & Environmental Policy at Tufts University, and author of Science in the Private Interest: Has the Lure of Profits Corrupted Biomedical Research? (2003), added: “New revenue streams for academia have come at the expense of integrity, autonomy and free and open exchange of knowledge.” Generally in agreement over the threats to academic integrity, conference participants struggled with finding workable solutions, and debated options ranging from a complete ban on all corporate funding, to more tightly regulated private sponsorship. Calling a total withdrawal “too extreme,” CAUT Executive Director James Turk suggested that for a start, universities should refuse to accept funding from corporate backers who restrict researchers from publishing all results, whether favorable to the sponsor, or not. And Seth Shulman, author of Undermining Science: Suppressions and Distortion in the Bush Administration, warned participants that because universities have come to rely more and more on corporate funding as governments have cut back, that “getting back to some untarnished place in history is not a viable option.” Shulman, a journalist and lead author on the Union of Concerned Scientists’ 2007 report “Smoke, Mirrors & Hot Air: How ExxonMobil Uses Big Tobacco’s Tactics to Manufacture Uncertainty on Climate Science,” instead urged a “remaking” of the arrangements between universities and corporate funders. “Don’t say ‘All is lost.’ Take an upper hand to sustain and preserve academia; view it as a seedbed for knowledge and focus on making clear that when the interaction between corporations and universities happens, the things that sustain objective, basic research must be protected.” |
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