Andreas K. Muenchow, an oceanographer with the University of Delaware, has spent 10 years working with Canadian-government scientists to study the Arctic. But now, he says, those collaborations could be in jeopardy.
In a February 7 post on his personal blog, Mr. Muenchow protested a new rule from Fisheries and Oceans Canada, a federal agency, that limits how its scientists—and those they collaborate with—are allowed to make their findings public.
“I feel that it threatens my academic freedom and potentially muzzles my ability to publish data and interpretation and talk [about] science issues of potential public interest without government interference,” he wrote.
He refused to sign an agreement that the department asks of outside scientists because it would have required him to keep data from a forthcoming project confidential without written approval from Canadian authorities.
Mr. Muenchow, his university, and the agency have since rewritten the collaborative terms in his case. But the associate professor’s public protest has reignited a debate in Canada over controls on taxpayer-supported research.
Limits on Public Access
Scientists and advocacy groups within and outside the country say the confidentiality rule is the latest in a long line of troubling efforts by Canada to limit public access to government-sponsored research in environmental and natural-resources studies.
Until now, concerns have focused on the restrictions facing scientists who work directly for the federal government, but Mr. Muenchow has put the spotlight on how the rules hamper university scientists as well.
“Thank goodness for him,” says James L. Turk, executive director of the Canadian Association of University Teachers, which represents 68,000 faculty members. “This policy isn’t accidental. The problem is the government isn’t public about changes, so unless someone speaks out, the rest of us don’t know about it. And the danger for a government scientist who speaks out is that they could put themselves in some jeopardy.”
Mr. Turk and other critics say the Conservative government of Prime Minister Stephen Harper has introduced rules like the one from Fisheries and Oceans Canada in part to control discussions about touchy political and environmental issues like climate change and oil sands. It is an accusation that government officials deny.
A spokeswoman for the agency describes the new rule, which took effect on February 1, as comprising “minor modifications to publication procedures.”
It requires that the department’s scientists and those working with them seek government approval before submitting a paper for external publication in a peer-reviewed journal or elsewhere.
Some Canadian university scientists say they plan to scrutinize their new agreements with researchers at Fisheries and Oceans Canada or other agencies.
“What’s happened does represent a fundamental change,” says Jeffrey A. Hutchings, a professor of biology at Dalhousie University, in Nova Scotia. “I personally know people who are collaborating with or hoping to collaborate with [the agency’s] scientists, and these latest changes to publication policy and contractual agreements have made them start to think, ‘Well, maybe I won’t undertake those collaborations, or should I request some sort of written confirmation that they will not act inappropriately or constrain publication in any way?’”
Francesca Grifo, a senior policy fellow with the Union of Concerned Scientists, an international environmental-advocacy group, says the rule could limit the myriad partnerships between American academics or scientists with U.S. federal agencies and their Canadian counterparts to study polar regions, fish migration, and other issues.
This specific fisheries disclosure agreement “is going to have a chilling effect, and it’s going to be very problematic for U.S.-government scientists,” says Ms. Grifo, a senior policy fellow with the group.
Canada, she says, is out of step with practices elsewhere. She notes a recent memo from John P. Holdren, director of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy, directing U.S. federal agencies that spend more than $100-million on research a year to develop policies to make scientific work they support publicly available within a year of publication.
The fisheries rule is not an isolated incident, says Gary Corbett, president of the 60,000-member Professional Institute of the Public Service of Canada, the country’s largest union representing scientists and professionals.
He cites one government scientist, Kristina Miller, who, when her groundbreaking research on salmon depletion was published in the journal Science in 2011, was not allowed to respond immediately to queries from the news media.
A few months later, she testified at a federal inquiry into fish farming that the gag order had been issued not by the fisheries department but by the Privy Council Office, which serves the prime minister and the cabinet. Her assertion was not denied by a spokesman for Mr. Harper.
‘Byzantine’ Approach
The Miller incident and another case, involving a researcher with Environment Canada, a federal department, last year prompted Mr. Corbett’s organization, along with the World Federation of Science Journalists and five other advocacy groups supporting press and academic freedom, to write an open letter to Mr. Harper.
They urged his government to adopt a “policy of transparent and timely communication,” similar to that of the U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration, which encourages its scientists to speak to the media without an intermediary.
Other groups, too, have stepped up to challenge the Canadian government’s approach. In an editorial last year, the journal Nature called the Harper government’s approach “byzantine” and urged it to “set its scientists free.” In February, the citizen group Democracy Watch and the University of Victoria’s Environmental Law Centre, in British Columbia, prepared a joint report on other incidents, in various federal departments, of alleged government suppression of the findings of scientists.
The two organizations have asked the Office of the Information Commissioner of Canada to investigate possible breaches of the Access to Information Act. The request is under consideration.
“It used to be that people from our center could phone up the federal government and talk to civil servants fairly easily about what was going on, how they regulated toxic substances or whatever,” says Calvin Sandborn, legal director of the Victoria center.
“But we’ve found that that relationship has shifted quite dramatically. We would be told that the person could not speak to us, that they would have to pass on a written inquiry that would then go to public-relations people. And then, two weeks later, we would get back a response that didn’t actually answer the question.”
Government officials say there are no efforts to curb the dissemination of research by scientists.
When asked to explain the fisheries publication rule, Melanie Carkner, a spokeswoman for Fisheries and Oceans Canada, told The Chronicle in an e-mail that the department issues more than 300 science reports a year, with scientists responding to more than 1,500 science-related news-media inquiries over the past three years.
She cited copyright concerns as a rationale for the changes. “The modifications eliminate duplicative peer reviews and ensure government intellectual-property rights are respected in third-party publications,” she said.
In early January, concerned about the deterioration in relations between the government and scientists, the Royal Society of Canada, the equivalent of the U.S. National Academy of Sciences, called for policies that balance the role of scientists in explaining their work to the public and the right of politicians to make decisions based on many factors, not just science.
“There are trade-offs,” says Pekka Sinervo, a particle physicist at the University of Toronto who serves on a Royal Society committee examining issues involving science and the public interest.
Both scientists and politicians should recognize that a tension exists between their roles in society, he says, “and it’s a reasonable tension to have.”
Mr. Turk, of the union, says it is making plans to raise awareness of the government’s science policy in a national campaign, Get Science Right, which will include a Web site and town-hall meetings.
The new disclosure policy, he says, is “destructive, it undermines the integrity of government scientists, and it makes it very difficult for them to collaborate as they historically have with their colleagues.”
