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Ancora Imparo, May, 2008

7 May 2008

Two recent events that have attracted a lot of attention in the media in the last month raise fundamental questions for universities of the modern era.

In the first, a senior lecturer in general practice at the University of Queensland gave a radio interview. He was identified at the beginning of the program by his professional title. During the interview, he raised some concerns about level of protection afforded by the cervical cancer vaccine, Gardasil, and about its expense. The vaccine had been developed by researchers at the University of Queensland in partnership with CSL. CSL wrote to the University of Queensland expressing disappointment with the comments by the staff member and refuting what CSL regarded as his misleading remarks. The Registrar of the University then wrote to the doctor urging him to provide a written apology to CSL in which he should make it clear that the comments were made by him in his personal capacity and were not endorsed or authorised by the university.

Questions were raised in the media about the extent to which accepting funds from corporate entities make universities beholden to those companies and whether it is good for universities to accept such funds. Secondly, the rights of individual academic staff members to speak publicly stating their views and the extent of control that the university might have over individual staff members were questioned.

The principles in relation to each of these matters are reasonably clear. Of course universities should collaborate with business and industry. This is necessary so that university research can help industries to become internationally competitive and industry can help universities and researchers to take their discoveries through to commercial development. This is not merely a matter of financial opportunism. In many cases, if a discovery is not commercialised, it will not be able to be produced or distributed in sufficient quantity to benefit the community, the environment or the economy, depending on the nature of the discovery. Gardasil is a wonderful success story arising from an appropriate partnership between an Australian company, CSL, and the University of Queensland.

University academic staff certainly have the right to speak publicly on matters within their field of expertise using their university status to enhance their credibility. Indeed, it can reasonably be argued that this is a responsibility. Of course, university staff are able to comment more broadly in areas of public interest, but if it is not in the area of their recognised academic expertise they should do this in a private capacity without referring to their academic affiliation.

Of course, the interpretation of "area of expertise" is often difficult as evidenced in the case described. The doctor may well claim that as a practising general practitioner employed by the university, he did have the expertise to draw attention to what he identified to be shortcomings of the vaccine. CSL considered his remarks to be outside his field of expertise and the letter from the university also suggested this interpretation. Perhaps it would have been simpler for CSL and the university to put out a statement correcting any misleading content by the staff member rather than requesting that an apology for his views should be sent to the company. By and large the public is sophisticated enough to recognise that there will be divergent views even amongst experts within an institution as large and diverse as a university.

The second issue related to Griffith University receiving funding from the Saudi Embassy to provide some additional funding for its Government-sponsored Centre for Islamic studies. There was a journalistic attempt to link the Centre and the funding to radical Islamic groups with exuberant references to Griffith University being akin to a madrassah.

Education and research about religions and cultures different from our own is an important role for universities. Studies of this kind do not imply a blind acceptance of the fundamentals of any faith. Far from the madrassahs which seek to close minds to alternative views, universities by their nature train students to open their minds. Mutual respect through shared understanding, even if beliefs are different, is an essential step in the quest for a more peaceful world. The fact that The Saudi Embassy provided some modest funding support does not subvert the objectives of the Centre. As for other forms of funding, the essential criterion relating to the acceptability of the funding is the constraints accompanying the funding. Any constraints limiting proper and unbiased scholarship or education are unacceptable. There is no evidence that such constraints operated in this case.

We live in complex and difficult times. Moral dilemmas do arise. We must respect academic freedom but this comes with its obligations. The two examples cited demonstrate the interest of the media in the relationships between universities and funding sources and demonstrate the need for policies to be clearly understood.

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