Federal commercialisation initiatives create incentives for universities to meet the needs of business rather than broader social objectives upon which universities were founded. Universities are becoming less independent, less trustworthy, and less reliable as they become more involved in business ventures. Universities are also at risk of becoming less inclined towards protecting public interest over private interests as the financial costs of losing industry partners becomes greater. Proponents of commercialisation argue that market-driven university research will enhance Canada's productivity and global competitive advantage. However, the race to commercialise university research at any cost is based on faulty assumptions and questionable outcomes.

Commercialisation warps the wider public research agenda

The strategies for commercialisation in universities disproportionately favour research in disciplines or research topics that are considered to have commercial value. Disciplines that have little perceived value are under pressure to either redefine their value in market language or perish. The disproportionate funding among the tri-councils demonstrates this unbalanced approach. Graduate students studying in the liberal arts are often competing for limited funds to study, while students in applied disciplines may be able to survive on comfortable stipends throughout their programs. The unequal financial support makes it more difficult for graduate students in the liberal arts to complete in a timely fashion.

Commercialisation can actually inhibit innovation

Time and valuable human and financial resources are spent in the (often futile) attempt to transfer technology and negotiate intellectual property agreements. University researchers are increasingly bogged down in a new role seeking investors, negotiating contracts, and haggling over publishing rights. All of this effort detracts from laboratory and teaching time --what Canadians have traditionally expected from university professors.

Innovation is also stalled in the wider scholarly community when research results are kept secret. It has become standard procedure for university-industry research contracts to prevent researchers from discussing results for extended periods of time while a patent is filed.

A recent study confronts the perception that patents speed up technological progress. The research shows that market incentives make it more beneficial for the "innovator" to sit on research discoveries. While the effect of a patent may be to increase the potential number of innovations, it also impedes the introduction of such discoveries to the market.12

Commercial pressure promotes bad science

The academic research environment is at odds with the values of industry research. Industry is oriented towards secrecy to gain a competitive advantage, while academe requires open dialogue and debate for peer assessment.

In one recent case, Oregon State University graduate student Daniel C. Donato wrote a paper that raised questions about the wisdom of logging trees burned in forest fires. The research results were not favourable to the industry's interests. The paper was accepted for publication in Science with Donato listed as the first author. Critics asked Science to delay the publication of the print version, but Science did not comply.

The Dean, Hal Salwasser, wrote to colleagues about doing "damage control" on the paper and offered suggestions to timber-industry representatives about crafting a public rebuttal. Dean Salwasser also wrote of the study's effects on the college's fund-raising efforts and on a Congressional bill related to the forestry industry.13

Maintaining research integrity requires an open environment where data can be verified and re-examined. Commercialisation, on the other hand, requires a closed system of knowledge development so that data may be owned and controlled for competitive advantage. In one study, 1077 graduate students and post-doctoral students were surveyed in the life sciences, computer science, and chemical engineering. Approximately, one-quarter reported that they had been denied information relevant to their research at some point. This was especially prevalent in research groups with links to industry. About half the affected respondents reported delays to their research.14 These results demonstrate the growing challenges to the open debate that is integral to advancing scientific work.

Industry sponsorship of university research may influence how research results are presented. A study of whether industry sponsorship influenced the outcome of pharmaceutical research discovered that studies sponsored by pharmaceutical companies were more likely to have outcomes favourable to the sponsor than were studies with no pharmaceutical company sponsors. It was concluded that systematic bias favours products which are made by the company funding the research.15

In addition to external pressure, experimental methodology and dissemination of results may be subject to impropriety if the researcher has a financial investment in the outcome. Inappropriate pressures can come from the researcher to narrow project designs to those most in market demand. Several studies concluded that industry involvement alters research behaviour.16

When the university-industry partnership involves public health, the stakes are even higher. The corporate infiltration of a panel convened to set standards for chromium (VI) in California succeeded in skewing the panel's decision to protect industry profits rather than public health.17

Internal checks and balances designed to prevent such abuses of public trust have nearly disappeared in Canada. University administrations, concerned more with keeping industry "customers" happy, are reluctant to pursue cases of research misconduct that may taint the reputation of their institution and threaten future corporate relations. Despite the significant transformations that universities have experienced to accommodate accelerated research activities and marketing, measures to protect academic freedom and research integrity have not been provided equitable consideration.

Commercialisation does not generate returns for universities

Significant public resources are being spent on commercialisation initiatives yet the benefits are accrued largely in the private sector. Canada's public universities seem to be receiving relatively little from the commercialisation agenda, yet bear increasing costs. For instance, there are increasing costs associated with legal and administrative aspects of commercialisation.18

The Canadian Foundation for Innovation estimates that by 2010 it will have disbursed approximately $4 billion.

The Expert Panel on the Commercialisation of Research is recommending an additional $1.1 billion in federal government spending. Yet, the AUCC's 2005 report Momentum estimates that by 2010 universities will have reaped a mere $70 million in returns from commercialisation.

Using the income derived from licenses against the overall expenditure on research, the rate of return from research expenditure income from licenses is extremely low (See chart).

In fact, despite the underlying profit motive, commercialisation can have the effect of making research more costly. Some research on the matter suggest that efforts to commercialise research in earlier stages of development increase the costs of research later in the process. For example, upstream patents over gene sequences require complex transactional agreements at each subsequent stage of research.19

Commercialisation threatens academic freedom

Governments are aggressively pushing the commercialisation agenda but are negligent in providing adequate protections for researchers who come forward to highlight threats to research integrity. Commonly known as whistleblowers, researchers who report data suppression or more blatant misconduct have no formal protection. Coming forward in the name of the public interest can be a career-ending decision.

A number of cases arising in universities across Canada are illustrating that graduate students and faculty members who raise questions about academic integrity often face reprisals from colleagues, supervisors and employers. The most well- known case is that of Dr. Nancy Olivieri who published research results that ran counter to the pharmaceutical sponsor's interests. Apotex claimed that by publishing the results in a journal, Olivieri broke the contract signed between the research hospital and the company. Although this case illustrates large scale influences that companies may have over research, there are also the unspoken and subtle decisions made on a day to day level by researchers across the country who are reliant upon industry funding and who know that their project funding depends upon continued sponsorship.

Although the federal government has rushed public research commercialisation policy into place, it has failed to introduce any safeguards whatsoever to protect research integrity and academic freedom. In contrast to the United States and Britain, Canada does not have a research body responsible for overseeing the ethics of publicly funded research investments. Without explicit recognition for the role of whistleblowers in public research settings, there are few incentives, if any, for graduate students and researchers to report research misconduct or questionable research practices.

With increased corporate influence over universities, university administrators as well as governments seem disinclined to support researchers standing up for academic integrity.

Commercialisation threatens university accountability and transparency

The transformation of the university as a research marketplace is contributing to a larger privatisation trend on campuses across Canada. University administrators, in the face of public funding claw backs and pressures to restructure, have increasingly assumed a more corporate management style. Competition rather than collaboration, is the new norm. Decision-making has become more centralized on many campuses, and access to information is more restricted.

The formation of spin-off companies may have a number of implications as the university itself is attempting to generate it's own profit and returns on the public's investments in research. In British Columbia, the province's three largest universities have argued that, despite public universities being subject to Freedom of Information legislation, that the finances of spin- off companies are private because the universities are providing a service to private-sector organisations.20 Currently, the creation of spin-off companies and their treatment as private entities has the effect of limiting access to any discoveries as they become the property of the company and the university, not the research community and the public.21

Commercialisation raises specific challenges for students

Within a commercialised research environment, students face a number of new challenges. Students require both access to new research and open communication within the laboratory and classroom to discover the newest developments within their fields of specialisation. Commercialisation both complicates and limits the knowledge available to students. The legal processes governing the ownership and distribution of knowledge increase the costs and bureaucracy of determining access to knowledge.

Student researchers are often graduate students who are working on a project that may or may not be directly related to their own graduate research. Duties of student researchers can range from basic up-keep of the research lab, to working with or supervising other employees in the lab, to carrying out full research projects as outlined by their supervisor. Through these responsibilities the student researcher is often expected to contribute intellectually and creatively to the research process. If the student researcher has not previously negotiated who will have creative control over ideas generated on research projects (which may also be governed by contracts with industry), the student may find that they do not have the right to disseminate or communicate research discoveries or ideas arising directly from their employment.

Commercialisation creates an increasingly complex administrative and legal terrain for researchers

Many policies existing within the university are inadequate in dealing with the recent challenges arising from commercialisation. Statutes governing intellectual property law are ever-evolving on both domestic and international levels.

Students are particularly vulnerable when it comes to appropriate recognition for their contributions to writing, research, and inventions. The case of Christopher Radziminski provides a clear example of the difficulties students may face when coming forward with complaints related to copyright infringement or plagiarism. Radziminski, a former graduate student at the University of Toronto, discovered two journal articles that contained extensive passages copied verbatim from his Master's thesis, without his knowledge or consent. Upon launching a complaint, the University and the two journal publishers did not take the allegation seriously and Radziminski was subsequently threatened by the University with a defamation suit for contacting the journals.

Many universities lack clear intellectual property policy, or exclude students' rights. Where policies exist they are often unclear and require negotiation between the graduate student and the researcher or the university administration. Of course, the power-laden relationship could hardly be expected to yield a fair result for the student. Accordingly, students are regularly denied recognition, patent royalties, or copyright from research they have participated in creating.

Without formal and established rules and protections both through university policy and collective agreements, graduate students are left to negotiate the complicated terrain of labour relations and university regulations on their own.