Freedom of information rules are a poor tool for scrutinising research funding, says John Womersley
On balance, I would not have excluded the Advanced Research and Invention Agency from the Freedom of Information Act, as the government has done. A blanket exemption just looks bad.
The government’s track record on commercial and procurement decisions doesn’t inspire confidence, to say the least. There are enough Aria doubters and critics already, without providing any more reasons to be cynical.
Even so, many of the objections to the government’s decision to shield its agency for risky, high-stakes research from freedom of information provisions seem like purely knee-jerk reactions. For me, freedom of information is more of an operational issue than a tenet of faith.
Clickbait misunderstandings
Aria’s mission-oriented approach means its management is likely to be much more hands-on than is the case for, say, a grant from a research council. The agency will have to own its failures—of which, given its high-risk approach, there are likely to be many.
Yet in the civil service, the punishment for failure tends to outweigh the reward for success. Officials can end up paralysed by the fear of bad headlines.
Aria needs to be able to act very differently; its managers should not be constantly looking over their shoulders. And the UK media, as a whole, probably lacks the maturity to resist clickbait misunderstandings around research funding.
Freedom of information is not really about policing dodgy spending decisions. That is a job for an organisation’s internal financial controls, its head of finance, its board, an independent audit and finance committee, and ultimately parliament and the National Audit Office.
Rather, freedom of information serves the taxpayer by bringing to light things that may have passed internal controls but that managers don’t relish being publicised. This almost never concerns the core business of funding research. It’s much more likely to be personnel issues, legal settlements or severance packages.
Typically, the inquiry stems from an insider who feeds information to a contact. Without whistleblowers, freedom of information requests end up as fishing expeditions—predictable, unhelpful questions about operational expenses, asked in the hope of unearthing something newsworthy but almost always wasting everyone’s time. My favourite example was an inquiry into how much money staff at the Swindon offices of the Biotechnology and Biological Sciences Research Council had charged to expenses at the local Burger King.
UK Research and Innovation reportedly receives about one freedom of information request a day. I suspect that few improve the operation of the organisation. And with social media allowing whistleblowers to bypass the media, the Freedom of Information Act is less central than when it was first implemented.
Countering cynicism
That said, Aria will benefit from transparency. I and many others would love to hear chief executive Peter Highnam’s vision and plans. We don’t need a white paper, just someone with authority to speak on behalf of Aria and share their thoughts about the organisation and what it’s intended to do.
As well as those broad brushstrokes, the best way to counter cynicism is to be open about the first round of projects and how they are selected, to be open about the level of risk entailed and to have an active communications strategy.
The public can get on board with risky projects if they are presented as swashbuckling adventures. The Beagle 2 probe to Mars may have been a failure, but it is not seen as a waste.
Highnam and his team should also think seriously about how to protect whistleblowers within the organisation. Whistleblowers can be inconvenient and are not always well intentioned, but nothing will be gained from a workplace culture where staff fear that if they tell the truth then they’ll be accused of bringing the organisation into disrepute. The truth will be out there anyway.
The past few weeks have given a much clearer view of Aria. Recruiting Highnam, from his deputy director role at the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in the United States, on which Aria is modelled, is a coup. His qualifications and ability to run the organisation are not in doubt, and his appointment should help to calm Aria’s critics.
Coupled with the legislation to establish Aria completing its passage through parliament, this should now settle any doubts about whether the agency is going to happen.
As someone who has run one of the research councils now within UK Research and Innovation, I know the strengths and limitations of the UK’s research system. Aria can add something that’s missing; it’s great to see it moving forward and I’m looking forward to hearing more from Highnam.
John Womersley is a visiting professor in the Department of Physics, Oxford University, and a former chief executive of the Science and Technology Facilities Council
This article also appeared in Research Fortnight