Front-line public service agencies are a vast research resource, understanding how they can help their community clients – think ambulance, police, corrections and education – but problems arise when officialdom wants to censor what independent researchers find.
Caitlin Brandenburg (Bond U) and Adrian Barnett (QUT), set out what can go wrong and propose ways to stop it. They report a researcher’s experience with an unidentified agency that required pre-publication review and “vaguely referenced feedback would be provided.”
This turned out to be a line-by-line edit of the draft paper and a demand that a specific quote by a participant be deleted. That was after the agency had sat on the text for six months and then demanded reference to their edits be deleted from the standard “conflict of interest” statement for the published paper.
The authors kicked up, but found there was no “clear pathway” in Australia for research-integrity disputes between authors and public sector agencies.
And so they investigated how wide it applied, to find:
- Police and ambulance services give themselves, “unrestricted review and editing powers”
- Corrections agencies focus on errors of fact and individual/community safety. Queensland Corrective Services explicitly states its intent is, “not to impose censorship or editorial changes.”
In contrast, public education authorities generally ask for a copy of the published paper.
But interference is never on, having “clear implications for research integrity and ethics.” It also breaches the national code, which binds academics but not public servants.
And so the authors propose:
- “Clear boundaries” so edits do not suppress unfavourable findings which are in the public interest;
- A no-stall clause in agreements, with agency reviews in a month, max ;
- “Clear and independent processes” for disputes;
- An all-of-government approach. “Researchers who are reliant on government organisations to be able to collect data or retain funding are in a position of weakness for negotiations … Australian government organisations which conduct or authorise research should be expected to meet minimum research integrity standards, with oversight for upholding those standards by suitable agencies.”
One obvious standard is, “no agency gets an escape-clause to veto publication of research they approved.”