Memorial University makes Indigenous data available
Memorial University rolled out a new type of research agreement recently, aimed at giving Indigenous groups more control over their data.
Max Liboiron, interim associate vice-president (Indigenous research) at the university, helped to get the new Indigenous research agreement template up and running, and said it was prompted by her interactions in communities.
“I was talking to a lot of people and I consistently heard, ‘And then we never heard from the researcher again,’” Liboiron told Saltwire Network. “Researchers were going into communities, they would talk a good talk, sometimes even walk a good walk, but they wouldn’t finish. I was interested in dealing with that and to be accountable to the promises researchers would make.”
Under the agreement, Indigenous groups who sign on would have the right to own, control, access and possess their data.
Liboiron was initially hoping to make it retroactive and repatriate some data to communities, similar to how artifacts are repatriated, but found there was no clear way to do that, so she focused on what they could do from now on. She looked around and found a few examples of Indigenous data sovereignty agreements at other institutions, but few at Canadian universities, making Memorial one of the first in the country with this formal research agreement on Indigenous data.
One group that has already used the new agreement is the Nunatsiavut Government (NG), which has a formal research structure.
Greg Flowers, minister of lands and natural resources with NG, said in a statement that it’s "encouraging and exciting to see an academic institution take important steps to recognize Indigenous sovereignty over data and knowledge."
Flowers said the agreement reinforces how NG has approached research and research partnerships for many years, and they look forward to using this agreement and hope this will encourage others in the academic community to take similar steps.
Liboiron said these agreements would make the university more legally accountable to the groups they work with, such as NG.
“You can do bureaucratic activism, and this is a good example of that, reinforcing sovereignty and being accountable to that through a legal document at the university,” she said.