Industry deals irk teachers
Oilsands contracts threaten U of C’s integrity: report
The University of Calgary is compromising its academic integrity and credibility in a pair of oilsands research deals with industry, says a new report.
The study by the Canadian Association of University Teachers claims the school is allowing energy giants control over budgets and research direction in return for millions of dollars.
“The reputational risk here is that the public will come to see the university as no different from any other private-sector place,” said Jim Turk, CAUT’s executive director.
“They might well ask why should we be underwriting this and why should we give greater credibility to the research done by these scientists if they’re simply being directed or shaped by interests other than academic ones.”
The U of C’s agreements to set up the Alberta Ingenuity Centre for In situ Energy (AICISE) and the Consortium for Heavy Oil Research by University Scientists (CHORUS) are among a dozen collaborations with industry, donors and government by Canadian post-secondaries examined in the report released Wednesday.
Only two of the deals had public documents, so the team of researchers at CAUT had to file freedom of information requests to get the rest of the agreements.
“If everything is above board,” said Turk, “why would you not want to share that? And if there are concerns, faculty may have no opportunity to voice those if these are deals signed in secret.”
U of C’s vice-presidents for research and development were both unavailable to be interviewed about the report on their previously private deals, but the school did issue a prepared statement.
“Preserving academic freedom and the integrity of research has always been paramount at the University of Calgary when accepting donations to enhance research opportunities and the learning experience for faculty and students,” the statement said.
Thomas Lukaszuk, Alberta’s deputy premier and the minister for enterprise and advanced education, said he wasn’t troubled by the deals so long as the province’s universities remained places where there were funds and the freedom for academics to undertake critical examinations of the energy sector and other industries.
“We cannot allow for a situation where this applied research and collaborative research displaces all those who used to produce independent study of industrial influence,” said Lukaszuk, “but as long as that exists, I don’t see a problem.”
In the AICISE agreement inked with companies like Shell, ConocoPhillips, Nexen Inc. and the province in 2004, the U of C got more than $10 million in some years to look for more profitable and energyefficient ways to recover and upgrade oil from in situ sites.
The CAUT report is critical of the fact the deal allows corporate and government partners a majority say in the research plans and budgeting.
In the CHORUS agreement signed the same year, the U of C agreed to collaborate with firms like Nexen, ConocoPhillips and Husky Energy to find cost-effective seismic monitoring methods to increase recoveries from heavy oil reservoirs.
The study is critical of the deal because it specifies that the principal investigator must be acceptable to the firms and allows them to withdraw funding if they are not in favour of the research proposed.
“It’s not surprising the private industry would want a say,” said Turk, “but it’s the obligation of the university to say we have a special role in democratic society and there are rules we need to have to protect our integrity.”
He said the U of C did get it right when it signed a $2.25 million deal with Enbridge Inc. two years ago to create a named centre for corporate sustainability.
“There is explicit provision for academic freedom, participants can’t have a financial interest in Enbridge and the university controls the academic aspects of it,” Turk said.
“It wasn’t a public document, but the core of it protected the school’s integrity.”