Nowadays, science is treated an instrument of policy, serving the material interests of government and commerce. Traditionally, however, it also has important non-instrumental social functions, such as the creation of critical scenarios and world pictures, the stimulation of rational attitudes, and the production of enlightened practitioners and independent experts. The transition from academic to ‘post-academic’ science threatens the performance of these functions, which are inconsistent with strictly instrumental modes of knowledge production. In particular, expert objectivity is negated by entanglement with (...) political and commercial interests. We cannot go back to the old academic model for science, but need to consider how to maintain its vital non-instrumental roles. (shrink)

Research is now an increasingly heterogeneous activity involving an expanded range of new actors and stake-holders and employing an eclectic range of epistemologies and methodologies. The emergence of these new research paradigms — and, in particular, of so-called ‘Mode 2’ knowledge production that is highly contextualised and socially distributed — raises new and challenging ethical issues and also important questions about the autonomy of science and the social responsibilities of scientists.

Throughout much of the world, universities have driven towards industrial partnerships. This collaboration, which, in the biochemical field at least, has to continue if potential benefits for patients are to be realised, has brought with it a number of problems. These include the neglect of long-term research in favour of short-term projects, the curtailing of free dissemination of research information within university departments and the biasing of results of clinical trials by the financial interests of the investigators. It is very (...) important that governments, universities, and industry itself address these problems. Universities should monitor the amount of basic, curiosity-driven research that is being carried on, compared with that which is more short-term goal orientated. PhD students and post-doctoral fellows should be exposed to the principles of bioethics early on in their careers. Further work is necessary on the terms of research contracts to protect, on the one hand, the rights of individual scientists and, on the other, industry from rogue scientists. Where problems arise, procedures should be in place for independent reviews to be conducted by bodies such as the Medical Research Council in the UK or the National Institutes of Health in the USA. The conflict-of-interest rules recently introduced for publication in medical journals should be extended to all branches of science. (shrink)

As a result of a gradual shifting of the resourcing of universities from the public to the private sector, the academic institution has been required to acquire some of its additional funding from industry via partnerships based on research and development. This paper examines this new condition and asks whether the different mission statements or modi operandi of the university vis à vis industry throws up additional ethical issues. While there are conditions where the interactions between industry and the university (...) may be seen to be between partners with some degree of equivalence, many such interactions, lacking this balance, are in danger of generating more concerns. It should also not be forgotten that independent publicly funded research establishments may also play an important role in the production of the innovation and development needed to maintain the strength of an industrial economy. (shrink)

When the University of Toronto withdrew a contract it held with me in December 2000, it initiated a sequence of events that led to a public letter to the University from senior figures in the world psychopharmacology community protesting against the infringement of academic freedom involved and a first ever legal action, undertaked by this author, seeking redress for a violation of academic freedom. The issues of academic freedom surrounding this case have been intertwined with a debate about the possibility (...) that the selective serotonin reuptake inhibitor (SSRI) group of antidepressants have the potential to trigger suicidality in a subgroup of patients. Whether the SSRIs do trigger suicidality or not, exploration of this issue has given rise to a number of worrying sets of observations. First, in my view, there is evidence that pharmaceutical companies have miscoded raw data on suicidal acts and suicidal ideation. Second, this author also maintains that there is a growing body of examples of ghostwriting of articles in the therapeutics domain. Many of the tensions evident in this case, therefore, can be linked to company abilities to keep clinical trial data out of the public domain — this is the point at which the pharmaceutical python gets a grip on academia. (shrink)

Research is now an increasingly heterogeneous activity involving an expanded range of new actors and stake-holders and employing an eclectic range of epistemologies and methodologies. The emergence of these new research paradigms — and, in particular, of so-called ‘Mode 2’ knowledge production that is highly contextualised and socially distributed — raises new and challenging ethical issues and also important questions about the autonomy of science and the social responsibilities of scientists.

This paper is a personal account of the events associated with the author’s work at the University of Toronto’s Hospital for Sick Children on a drug, deferiprone, for the treatment of thalassaemia. Trials of the drug were sponsored by the Canadian Medical Research Council and a drug company which would have been able, had the trials been successful, to seek regulatory approval to market the drug. When evidence emerged that deferiprone might be inadequately effective in a substantial proportion of patients, (...) the drug company issued legal threats when the author proposed informing her patients and the scientific community. Until protests were made by international authorities in her field of research, the hospital and university did not adequately support the author’s academic freedom and responsibilities as a medical practitioner. It is argued that underlying cause of this, and of other similar cases, is the political philosophy which is driving the commercialisation of universities and bringing about the deregulation of drug approval procedures. Together these changes constitute a serious threat to the public good. (shrink)

The belief that science is “a driver of growth in the knowledge economy” has led in recent decades to increasing encouragement by government of the involvement of industry and of commerce in the sponsorship and direction of research in universities, and to the increasing influence of industrial representatives on advisory panels associated with the publicly funded scientific research councils. By extending the doctrine of commercial confidentiality into university laboratories, inconvenient findings have been suppressed, and both free endeavour and free speech (...) undermined. This has narrowed our scientific horizons and compromised government advisors. It is argued that scientific freedom is a guarantor of our wider liberties. Science, which tells us who we are and how we can live better, is being distorted so twisting our understanding of the ways in which we might progress, shutting off alternatives to existing models of development. Business now stands as a guard dog at the gates of perception. Only the inquiries which suit its needs are allowed to pass. (shrink)

This article argues that the academic values associated with intellectual freedom are incommensurable with those of industry which permeate recent related government initiatives associated with enterprise education and quality audit and assessment. It concludes that if industrial values are implanted in universities, they will destroy the academic values on which open intellectual enquiry and the disinterested pursuit of knowledge depend.

The likely impact of applying the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS) to higher education are examined. GATS aims to “open up” services to competition: no preference can be shown to national or government providers. The consequences for teaching are likely to be that private companies, with degree-awarding powers, would be eligible for the same subsidies as public providers. Appealing to the inadequate recently introduced “benchmark” statements as proof of quality, they would provide a “bare bones” service at lower (...) cost. Public subsidies would go: education being reduced to that minimum which could be packaged in terms of verifiable “learning outcomes”. The loss of “higher” aspirations, such education of critically-minded citizens of a democratic and civilised society would impoverish the university’s research culture which demands honesty and openness to public scrutiny. (shrink)

ABSTRACT This paper analyses the underlying conflicts between the principles of education and the market. After identifying an international movement towards justifying excellence in education in terms of a goal external to education, namely “to compete effectively in the international marketplace”, the paper shows that: (i) this justification of education has been increasingly presupposed or prescribed by corporate, government and educational leaderships, and (ii) education as a social institution has been correspondingly subordinated to international market goals, including the language and (...) self-conceptualization of educators themselves. The argument of the paper demonstrates that there are fundamental contradictions between the market and education models in terms of (1) Goals, (2) Motivations, (3) Methods and (4) Standards of Excellence. Counter-arguments to this analysis are presented, and replies are given. The article concludes that the long-term development of education and of civilization itself requires the autonomy of education from market command. (shrink)