Scientists won’t be muzzled
Confidentiality rules on Arctic project ‘all about control’
“This is a greater exertion of control over the communication of science. There is no other way to interpret it.”
JEFFREY HUTCHINGS, DALHOUSIE UNIVERSITY
A bid by the federal government to impose sweeping confidentiality rules on an Arctic science project has run into serious resistance in the United States.
“I’m not signing it,” said Andreas Muenchow of the University of Delaware, who has taken issue with the wording that Canada’s Department of Fisheries and Oceans has proposed for the Canada-U.S. project.
It’s an affront to academic freedom and a “potential muzzle,” said Muenchow, who has been collaborating with DFO scientists on the project in the eastern Arctic since 2003.
DFO’s proposed confidentiality provisions say all technology and “other information” related to the Arctic project “shall be deemed to be confidential and neither party may release any such information to others in any way whatsoever without the prior written authorization of the other party.”
If enforced, Muenchow says the fisheries department could prevent researchers from publishing scientific findings, and sharing information on the project with the media and public, which is encouraged by the U.S. agencies co-funding the project.
Muenchow and DFO scientists involved in the project travel north by icebreaker to deploy and retrieve instruments to assess oceanographic conditions in ice-choked Nares Strait, which runs between Canada’s Ellesmere Island and Greenland and may have a significant effect on ocean circulation.
Muenchow’s problem with the DFO comes amid growing concern and controversy over the Harper govern- ment’s micro-management of science.
Researchers are dismayed at “new” publication procedures sent to many federal fisheries scientists two weeks ago and published online by an anonymous federal researcher.
The procedures say DFO managers will decide when and if studies involving DFO scientists can be published in external scientific journals, which are at the heart of scientific communication.
The Jan. 29 memo to scientists in DFO’s central and Arctic science sector says the rules apply to “all” — the all in bold italics — studies in- volving DFO scientists, who have a long history of collaborating with researchers at universities in Canada and abroad to assess everything from sea ice to contamination levels in wildlife.
The DFO scientists have been told they must now “wait for approval” before submitting their studies for publication in science journals. “The responsible Division Manager will review for any concerns/impacts to DFO policy,” said the procedures that come with a flow chart.
“It’s absolutely unbelievable,” one federal scientist who received the email told Postmedia News Wednesday. The scientist, who asked to remain anonymous, said the rules appear to be “all about control.”
Kevin Stringer, assistant deputy minister of DFO’s ecosystems and ocean science sector, defended the new procedures in a telephone interview Wednesday. He said the “adjustments” streamline and clarify the department’s publication procedure that has been in place for many years.
He says the changes require — as opposed to “rec- ommend” in the previous publication procedure — that all studies authored and coauthored by DFO scientists be approved by managers before they can be published. But he says they also remove the need for DFO to conduct internal and often time-consuming scientific review of the studies prior to publication, since research journals take care of that.
“We’ve got two small changes. One of them actually streamlines the process, one clarifies, and largely is to support ensuring that we are looking after intellectual property,” Stringer said.
He says “similar arrange- ments” are being put in place across DFO’s various science sections.
“The idea is to support good science getting out there,” Stringer said. But at the same he said the department wants to ensure patents and copyright flowing from the science are properly managed.
Observers see a much more sinister side to the tightened publication procedures.
Fisheries scientist Jeffrey Hutchings, of Dalhousie University, said having a manager assess studies for policy impacts is sure to have “a chilling effect” and could prevent important scientific findings from being made public.
Hutchings said the new procedures will also likely hamper collaborative research between DFO scientists and academics and deter DFO scientists from pursuing work perceived as politically sensitive.
“This is a greater exertion of control over the communication of science,” Hutchings said. “There is no other way to interpret it.”
Meantime, Muenchow, an oceanographer at the University of Delaware, says the sweeping confidentiality provisions DFO proposed for the Arctic project would be more appropriate for classified military research.
Muenchow, who blogs about his Arctic work, says the research office at the University of Delaware is now negotiating with DFO officials to rework the agreement so it does not “sign away my freedom to speak, publish, educate, learn and share.”
The proposed agreement DFO sent to Muenchow in January is to cover a one-year extension of the long-running Canada-U.S. project. The 19-page agreement includes a two-page appendix spelling out confidentiality and publication rules.
The previous Canada-U.S. agreement for the project, signed in 2003, was 11 pages long and contained two sentences on publication and encouraged the sharing of information.
“Data and any other project-related information shall be freely available to all Parties to this Agreement and may be used, disseminated or published, by any party, at any time,” the 2003 agreement said.
Frank Stanek, DFO’s manager of media relations, said the sweeping confidentiality policy proposed in January is a “legal template” created by the department to “protect the intellectual property rights of all participants in a project.”
“All Fisheries and Oceans Canada projects undertaken collaboratively with other parties would be subject to similar, mutual confidentiality provisions,” Stanek said.
Stringer says he hopes DFO and the University of Delaware will be able to work out their differences.
Hutchings shares Muenchow’s concern.
He said DFO’s confidentiality provisions will be interpreted “by non-DFO scientists, indeed non-Canadian scientists, as an infringement on their right to publish the results of their research and, thus, to communicate their science.”