UUK presses for FOI unpublished research exemption

Universities UK, the vice-chancellors’ umbrella group, is working to convince parliament to exempt data relating to unpublished university research from the Freedom of Information Act.

Writing in a UUK blog post, Vivienne Stern, the organisation’s head of political affairs, says that giving UK universities the right to decline to submit data from unpublished work is a “pretty limited request”. She points out that a similar exemption already exists in Scottish FOI legislation.