[Commlist] cfp: Money talks? The impact of corporate funding on academic research in information law and policy

*Call for papers, workshops, roundtables, action on  - *

**

*Money talks? The impact of corporate funding on academic research in 
information law and policy*

**

/An event by the European Hub of the Global Network of Centers for 
Internet and Society (NoC), organized by the Institute for Information 
Law, University of Amsterdam/

**

*October 23, Wednesday 2019, Amsterdam*

/Introduction/

Concerns about the corporate funding of scientific research, and about 
the presence of corporate sponsors in scientific events are not an 
exceptional issue in the academic field. For decades, scientific domains 
like medicine, climate 
<https://www.pnas.org/content/early/2015/11/18/1509433112.short>research, 
health 
<https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0175643>and 
nutrition <https://www.bmj.com/content/353/bmj.i2161>science have been 
struggling with controversies 
<https://www.ucsusa.org/disguising-corporate-influence-science-about-sugar-and-health>and 
dilemmas around the direct and indirect impact of corporate funding 
<https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/pdf/10.1177/0162243912456271>on the 
quality of their scholarship, integrity, independence, both actual, and 
as perceived by others.

Research in the domain of the information society is not immune to these 
controversies. For example, the emerging giants of the information 
society are active research funders, and promote academic research as a 
way to influence public policy, or at least are perceived to do so. The 
information industry is also increasingly in exclusive control of 
fundamental research resources, such as data, or technology design. The 
2017 Campaign for Accountability 
<https://campaignforaccountability.org/new-report-reveals-googles-extensive-financial-support-for-academia/>(CA) 
controversy perfectly captures the complexity of the situation this 
creates around science. CA was apparently set out to identify Google’s 
influence on information policy research and (controversially) 
identified 329 research papers on public policy matters that were 
directly or indirectly funded by the search company. Only later it 
turned out that one of the funders of CA was Oracle 
<http://fortune.com/2016/08/19/google-transparency-project-2/>, which at 
the same time was fighting Google in Court, and perceived CA as part of 
that effort.

In September 2018 a wide group of academics raised concerns 
<https://fundingmatters.tech/>about the role of surveillance technology 
company Palantir as sponsor of academic events on data privacy. The 
subsequent debate raised important questions about the dimensions in 
which different corporations active in the online world should be 
critically assessed, and the terms on which science can engage with them.

The growing concerns about the influence of corporate funding of 
academic research in all disciplines can be attributed to the effects of 
several connected factors. For a number of financial, political and 
social reasons there is a significant pressure on  academics to be 
entrepreneurial, and attract and pursue funding from private sources 
<https://doi.org/10.1177/0162243915576004>. Large corporations have been 
responding to this situation with often substantial amounts of funding, 
and various forms of collaborations.

On the other hand, access to private funders and corporate sponsors may 
carry benefits: corporate participation is a prerequisite of a 
substantive and inclusive dialogue on contentious issues and policy 
developments. It can also foster collaborations, and provide scientists 
access to information, data, people, which would otherwise remain beyond 
reach. However, the intentions of corporations to invest in academic 
research are not always transparent. Some consider it to be relatively 
harmless when corporate sponsorship is motivated by the desire to 
associate their brand with academia, or to contribute to society to 
boost the public company image. Others claim that corporations may 
decide to fund research with malevolent intentions in order to influence 
the public debate, or pursue some hidden agenda.  It often remains 
unclear for the public what motivates a company to fund academic 
research. Corporate sponsorship may be seen as suspicious, and 
detrimental to the results of the scientific outcomes, even if it was 
done with the right motivation, an ultimately it may also have an impact 
on the public trust in science.

In order to prevent a conflict of interest and to ensure objectivity and 
transparency in research, institutions 
<https://ec.europa.eu/info/research-and-innovation/strategy/support-policy-making/scientific-support-eu-policies/european-group-ethics-science-and-new-technologies-ege_en>and 
governments have been developing 
<https://www.vsnu.nl/en_GB/news-items/nieuwsbericht/471-new-netherlands-code-of-conduct-for-research-integrity.html>policies 
<http://archives.esf.org/media-centre/ext-single-news/article/the-european-code-of-conduct-for-research-integrity-endorsed-by-european-science-foundations-gove.html>and 
guidelines 
<https://www.knaw.nl/nl/thematisch/ethiek/wetenschappelijke-integriteit>to 
foster integrity. The resulting codes of conducts are based on several 
widely supported fundamental principles which are translated into more 
specific standards for good research practices. The European Code of 
Conduct for Research Integrity <http://goo.gl/WRuVz>, for instance, is 
built around four principles: reliability, honesty, respect and 
accountability.

Yet, it remains to be seen how effectively such international 
<https://www.knaw.nl/shared/resources/thematisch/bestanden/MontrealStatementonResearchIntegrityinCrossBoundaryResearchCollaborations_2013.pdf>, 
European, national, and domain specific codes of conducts can be 
monitored, and enforced, and how effective they can be in safeguarding 
both the integrity of research, and it’s public perception.

Recent events and the call for an action-oriented discussion on 
corporate sponsorship therefore warrant the /impact of corporate funding 
on academic research/ as the theme for the next meeting for the European 
Hub of the Global Network of Centers for Internet and Society (NoC). The 
conference strives to bring together scholars within the information law 
discipline, as well as related fields to discuss questions such as:

*Understanding the problem: the scope, structure, amount, topics and 
beneficiaries of corporate funding  in research*

●How big corporate influence is in the first place? How much money are 
we talking about?

●What are the forms of (corporate) research funding, such as financial 
support, funded positions, data access, etc.?

●What drives corporate funding decisions?

**

*Internal safeguards of research independence and integrity*

●What are the best ways to safeguard research independence and integrity?

●Are the current principles and safeguards that guide engagement with 
corporate sponsors and funders adequate?

●What are the limitations of current integrity safeguards? Is there room 
for improvement?

●Are there specific/additional principles that should to inform such 
engagement in the area of information law and policy?

●Does it make sense to differentiate between different forms of 
sponsoring (institutional/project, in-kind/access/money)?

*Interfaces and firewalls between academia and industry *

●What kind of integrity-infrastructure does academia need for the future 
where more and more essential resources are going to be in the exclusive 
control of corporations?

●What legal and policy innovations are needed to ensure due access to 
privately held or controller data sources?

●How could standards be set for the acceptance of corporate funding? 
What are the existing methods of standard setting?

●What is a proper way to signal the company support without creating the 
impression of industry research?

*The impact of corporate funding *

●How to manage public trust in academia which is increasingly funded by 
private parties?

●What are the effects of increased acceptance of private funding of 
academic research on government spending on science?

●Are some geographies, institutions, and initiatives more dependent on, 
or more exposed to corporate funding? How to address these differences?

●Are there neglected research topics because they do not attract 
corporate funding?

●How to deal with public funding from authoritarian regimes?

We welcome individual paper proposals and panel and workshop proposals, 
and other forms of interventions and actions.

Please submit paper abstracts, and panel proposals of no more than a 
1000 words to the following email address: (money.talks /at/ ivir.nl) 
<mailto:(money.talks /at/ ivir.nl)>by *July 1^st , 2019.*  Acceptance decisions 
will be communicated in about a month.


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