Court to rule on release of Monsanto meeting transcript

Concerns over industry influence on Canadian university research are coming to a head with a court expected to rule on whether a transcript of a meeting between academics and representatives of the agrochemical giant Monsanto can be released.

Some academics believe that the 2015 meeting on the University of Saskatchewan’s campus was a strategy session to thwart public scrutiny of research collaborations with Monsanto – something that the participants deny.

Years of legal wrangling over the meeting are coming to a head shortly with the expected ruling by a provincial court over whether a transcript of the event should be released.

So far, the university has made available only a heavily redacted transcript, citing privacy rights that are guaranteed in provincial law.

But campaigners have said that the institution should allow scrutiny of its relationships with industry – especially with a company that attracted controversy for its role in developing agrochemicals and genetically modified crops and was accused of inducing allies in academia to downplay potential safety risks.

“Why is it so desperately necessary to keep these conversations between industry and the university secret?” asked D’Arcy Hande, one of several current and former staff pressing the case. “What is so explosive in there?”

Peter Phillips, director of the Johnson-Shoyama Center for the Study of Science and Innovation Policy – a joint venture between the universities of Saskatchewan and Regina – helped to organise the meeting in conjunction with Monsanto, which was acquired by Bayer last year. He insisted that he had wanted to bring fellow faculty together with experts in promoting Monsanto’s arguments and countering its critics because he wished to study the interaction.

“Monsanto had, at the peak, a 92 per cent market share globally” for genetically engineered crops, Professor Phillips said. “So it’s pretty hard to talk about the industry and understand what's going on without looking at them and talking to them.”

Mr Hande claimed that the fact that participants were asked to discuss “designing, managing and communicating” industry-academic collaborations suggested a sympathetic bond with Monsanto and other corporate partners, which have provided Professor Phillips’ public policy school with more than C$150 million (£85 million) in grant support.

The concerns over industry influence go far beyond the transcript of a single meeting, said Mr Hande, who retired in 2005 after 30 years as an archivist and historian at Saskatchewan. Canada has long had the highest or one of the highest percentages of industry support for academia, Mr Hande said, and Saskatchewan is especially reliant as a consequence of the natural resources found in the province where it is located.

The Court of Queen’s Bench, the province of Saskatchewan’s superior trial court, is expected to rule soon on the transcript redactions.

Mr Hande and his allies expect to see controversial exchanges. Professor Phillips promised that there would be no surprises if the full transcript was released, but did not foresee an end to the suspicions that beset any funder of science, be it government or companies.

“The moment you open yourself up to anything other than curiosity-led research that is assigned through some impersonal peer structure, there’s a possibility that there’s a perception of bias,” Professor Phillips said. “But you can’t prove a negative. So we’re all sort of tainted by the same brush, and right now the focus is on industrial money in the academic space.”

paul.basken@timeshighereducation.com