Ethics in Research Funding

“Educated, intelligent people have many opportunities in life. Those who out-source their minds to secretive and abusive organizations demonstrate to us either a lack of intellectual ability or an impoverished moral standard. They do not earn our respect as scholars or as human beings” ~ Julian Assange

 

While conducting research on research funding for 5553, I found that many (if not most) research institutions have policies on ethical standards that are to be maintained by researchers (e.g. this one from The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill). However, there appear to be few (if any) policies on ethical standards as pertains to those entities that fund research.

 

At least one institution defends this lack of policy by stating that it “does not prohibit the evaluation of funding sources” but “[t]he University has traditionally avoided evaluating the ethical and political stances of research sponsors.” Primary reasons as to why the ethical standards of donors are a non-issue: activities and stated goals of donors are “irrelevant” [as long as they have cash?]; ethical tests “limit academic freedom” [of the donors, but apparently not of the researchers].

 

This one-way ethics policy reminds me in many ways of the unidirectional evaluations many institutions implement on their employees. One wonders: might omnidirectional evaluations (e.g. supervisor evaluate employee, employee evaluate supervisor, peer evaluate peer) be a more effective measure of performance, as well as help to eliminate the potential for personal bias – or at least be more likely to reveal the bias, if indeed it does exist?

 

As for the ethical standards of those who fund research, mightn’t an omnidirectional ethics policy also help to eliminate some of the seven human errors that are to be avoided while conducting – or funding – research (e.g. Federal Trade Commission Docket 9206: Of cigarettes and science)?

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