GM WATCH daily: When Corporations Come to Campus

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GMW: When Corporations Come to Campus - Chapela in webcast

conference

" GM WATCH " <info

Mon, 20 Mar 2006 16:49:39 GMT

 

 

 

 

 

GM WATCH daily

http://www.gmwatch.org

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1.When Corporations Come to Campus

2.Lessons from Lancaster

 

The webcast can be viewed at www.georgefox6.co.uk/conference.html

 

NOTE the involvement of Lord Sainsbury - the UK's

GM-supporting-and-investing Science Minister - in all of this (item 2).

 

Lord Sainsbury was the keynote speaker at the corporate venture

conference that resulted in the prosecution of the 6 Lancaster University

students.

 

More importantly, his was the investment plan for science and

innovation that was pushing British universities to work much closer with

business and which ultimately lay behind the corporate venture conference

(item 2).

 

And, as the recent sleazy revelations about Blair's unmerited rewards

for Party donors have reminded us, this billionaire former food

industrialist effectively bought his ministerial position - a position

from

which he has been able to push biotech and corrupt science and academia.

 

For more on this see: 'Blair's latest sleaze project and the biotech

peers'

http://www.gmwatch.org/archive2.asp?arcid=6355

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1.George Fox 6 Supporters Group

Contact: 01524 383012

georgefox6

 

LANCASTER STUDENT DEMONSTRATORS IN INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON

CORPORATISATION OF UNIVERSITIES

 

When Corporations Come to Campus: Can Academic Freedom Survive in a

Corporate World?

 

Wednesday 22nd March, 5.30-8.30pm, Institute for Advanced Studies,

Lancaster University, Lancaster

 

On Wednesday 22nd March, six Lancaster students will talk about their

appeal against convictions for protesting against the commercialisation

of research at a conference that links them with Berkeley University in

California.

 

When Corporations Come to Campus aims to promote debate about the

consequences of corporate ties to academia upon the independence and

integrity of university research something that the George Fox Six

were hoping

to do when they protested at the Corporate Venturing conference at

Lancaster University in September 2004(1).

 

Open to members of the public, the event will take place from 5.30 to

8.30pm at the Institute for Advanced Studies, Lancaster University and

will be streamed live on the internet.

 

Speakers include academics from the UK and the US, among them:

 

*Dr Ignacio Chapela (2) of Berkeley University, whose story has been

deemed one of the most shocking examples of the corporate attempt to

censor science,

 

*Thanos Mergoupis (3) who lost his job researching the economic and

social impact of tourism at the London School of Economics when his

sponsors took a dislike to his results

 

*and Matthew Wilson, one of the six students prosecuted for protest at

Lancaster University.

 

They will be joined by Colwyn Williamson of the Campaign for Academic

Freedom and

Academic Standards (4).

 

Lancaster University's Vice Chancellor has refused to speak at the

conference.

 

The organisers of the conference hope to draw the attention of the

academic world to this important issue.

 

Joanne Moodie, one of the six Lancaster students says:

 

" The commercialisation of university research may have very severe

consequences. For centuries, universities have been about expanding the

general body of knowledge for the benefit of humanity. Now, corporate

bodies attempting to cash in on knowledge development at universities

threaten the very principles on which universities were built.

Already, many

academics around the globe have had their funding quashed, or their

careers damaged by finding out things that their sponsors didn't want

them

to find. In a world where we depend on university research for so much,

from medicines to climate change, we cannot risk losing the freedom and

integrity that have for so long been a part of academia. "

 

The conference will be held at IAS, Lancaster University on 22.3.06 at

17.30 (GMT), and will be simultaneously broadcast over the internet.

 

The webcast can be viewed at www.georgefox6.co.uk/conference.html

 

(1) The George Fox Six were convicted of Aggravated Trespass after

their retrial which ended in Preston Crown Court last Friday. The six

were

summonsed to court after a peaceful three minute demonstration on

their own campus at Lancaster University.

 

(2) Dr. Ignacio Chapela lost his position as Professor at Berkeley,

University of California, after he revealed the extent of contamination

caused by GM Maize in Mexico. After an international campaign he was

reinstated.

 

(3) Thanos Mergoupis is now based at Bath University.

 

(4) The Council for Academic Freedom and Academic Standards is

dedicated to maintaining standards of integrity and practice in

academia, to

exposing breaches in those standards and to supporting the victims of

those breaches. www.cafasorg.uk

 

/ends

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2.Lessons from Lancaster

Stifling student dissent is nothing new - what's new is who's doing it,

writes Stuart Parkinson

The GUARDIAN, 19 October 2005

http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,1595169,00.html

 

Last month, Lancaster University succeeded in having six protestors

(four of them its own students) convicted for taking part in a short

non-violent protest at a conference held at the university. The case is

significant in that it shows that universities are rapidly moving away

from

the role of guardians of intellectual freedom and freedom of speech.

 

The protest in question took place over a year ago when a management

consultancy organised a conference at the university with the aim of

encouraging closer links between business and the university. Lord

Sainsbury, the science minister, was the keynote speaker. Delegates

included

representatives from major corporations such as BAE Systems, Shell and Du

Pont.

 

The six protestors decided they wanted to draw attention to the way

corporations involved in controversial activities including the arms

trade, oil exploration and GM crops were significantly expanding their

influence over university research and compromising its independence. So

shortly after the conference opened, they entered the conference hall,

unfurling banners, shouting slogans and blowing whistles. The protest was

over within minutes, when the six were removed from the hall, and then

the building, by university staff.

 

Five months after the protest, the university began criminal

proceedings against the six for 'aggravated trespass'. This law -

which had its

roots in attempts by John Major's government to restrict anti-hunting

protest - prohibits intimidation, disruption or obstruction of those

engaged in a lawful activity on private land. In court, the prosecution

argued that the six had intimidated conference delegates (an argument

rejected by the magistrate) and disrupted the event - the latter being

the

basis of the guilty verdict.

 

This case shows not only how little protestors now need to do before

their activities are deemed criminal, but also that universities -

institutions that have often been in the forefront of dissent and protest

against the activities of government and business - now seem to be ready

to stifle dissent.

 

But should we be surprised? Last year the government set out its

10-year investment plan for science and innovation. Central to this

document

was that universities must work much closer with business and indeed

must behave more like business. The plan was bursting with policies and

funding programmes to expand not only corporate sponsorship of research,

but also entrepreneurial activities amongst academics themselves. The

corporate venture conference which was the target of the protest at

Lancaster was one manifestation of this policy.

 

So the dividing line between academic work and commercial work is being

intentionally blurred. The potential this has for the distortion of

university research is not trivial. Indeed, a swathe of recent studies

investigating whether funding from the pharmaceutical industry influences

the results of academic research has concluded that - whether

intentionally or not - the bias direct funding creates towards the

interests of

the funder is very real.

 

This is all the more disturbing when it is realised that only one in

every 200 scientific papers discloses possible conflicts of interest,

although a recent analysis found that as many as one in three lead

authors

may be so compromised. There is indeed good reason to be very concerned

about the extent of bias right across academic research.

 

This is not to argue that research should not lead to commercial

products or that universities should not talk to or work with

business. But

there have to be clear boundaries. Strict rules on potential conflicts

of interest need to be enacted and the universities' role of public

service needs to be prioritised and protected - especially its

responsibilities to produce reliable, independent scientific knowledge

and to

encourage debate on how that knowledge is used.

 

Unfortunately, the 10-year science plan contains little to indicate

that the government has recognised the fundamental problem with a very

close relationship between business and academia. The administrators of

Lancaster University certainly seem not to have understood the issue.

Indeed, they claimed during the trial that they had no reason to believe

that the conference would arouse controversy. And they seem not to

appreciate the irony that the conference had been held in a building

named

after the founder of the Quaker movement, George Fox, who was imprisoned

several times promoting radical ideas in the 17th century. Which just

goes to show that stifling dissent is nothing new - what's new is who's

doing it.

 

The six are appealing against the conviction. For the sake of

intellectual freedom and the right to protest, let's hope they are

successful.

 

Stuart Parkinson is the director of Scientists for Global

Responsibility

 

 

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