Opinion: Big Tech support for Canadian universities risks compromising research integrity, McMaster study finds

Vass Bednar is Executive Director of McMaster University’s Master of Public Policy in the Digital Society program and Adjunct Professor of Political Science.

Online news publication The Intercept detailed in 2019 how Big Tech is manipulating US academia to avoid regulation. The analysis indicated that some big tech companies are hiring and funding academic experts as a strategy to circumvent restrictions on controversial technologies. No comparable analysis of this phenomenon existed in Canada – until now.

McMaster University graduate students Master of Public Policy in the Digital Society program has recently contributed research to the program which has just been launched Regulatory capture laboratory, which is co-financed by the Center for Digital Rights and Friends of Canadian Broadcasting. While the primary focus of the initiative was to examine the relationship between the biggest tech companies and the federal government, the research also explored “academic capture,” asking whether big tech support for academics and universities Canadians risks compromising the integrity of research.

The initiative found that top tech companies interact with Canadian campuses in similar ways. Its initial analysis offers a global perspective on how university spaces can be exploited by businesses while benefiting from the opportunities that investments can unlock. Big Tech’s continued integration into the ivory tower forms a kind of playbook on how to ‘whitewash’ self-serving narratives through sponsored research, giving lobbyists extra credibility through nominations, and investing in the career paths of promising young talent.

Big Tech’s presence in academia comes in the form of chairs or sponsored chairs, residency programs, or contributions to artificial intelligence institutes. Tech companies also sponsor student competitions and hackathons to find talent and ideas. They frequently cover the tuition fees of promising graduate students in relevant fields and facilitate their collaboration with in-house researchers, engineers and developers. Sometimes companies invest in scholarships or co-op programs for students who are then hired after graduation. Thus, tutoring can be considered as an investment in R&D.

Sometimes academics themselves occupy intellectual and private sector spaces simultaneously through cross-appointments, which can raise questions about ownership. intellectual property. This overlap is exemplified by AI godfather Geoffrey Hinton — who splits his time between Google and the University of Toronto — and emulated by other researchers.

Many companies engage in broader campus partnerships. To consider Applicatione’s partnership with the University Health Network in Toronto examining how the Apple Watch can provide early detection of heart failure. Although wearables are not regulated as “medical devices” by Health Canada, this partnership gives them credibility as a consumer product by integrating them into medical research.

The new normal that associates school spaces with private participation is perhaps best exemplified by Canada’s leading AI institutes: CIFAR is partly funded by Facebook, and many CIFAR research chairs work with top AI companies. the Vector Institute is partly supported by Google, and the THOUSANDS research center has a $7 million investment from Facebook.

Ultimately, funding research is an exercise in power; use private funds to exercise public influence. These activities are remarkable because the results of the collaborations between academics and technology companies can be unreliable. Companies can fund research that occupies ambiguous policy space, such as Amazon’s Voice Technology Accelerator Program at the University of Waterloo. They can also support initiatives – like AI superclusters – that are overseen by one of the lead departments engaged in significant regulatory activity. This may inadvertently attract some companies to government policy makers who are also responsible for regulating them.

In some cases, companies can leverage the credibility of academics to spread corporate stories or sign public letters of support. Universities risk losing top academics as part of the brain drain to the sector, while tenure-track academics may be reluctant to critique companies in their research until they have achieved tenure.

We are not without checks and balances. Guidelines when accepting sponsored research at a Canadian university are strong, and contracts strictly state that a funder cannot influence the final results. However, the option of independent counsel can be opaque. Typically, up to 20% of an academic’s time can be devoted to this work, or about one working day per week. This option is defined by university-specific policies. Such flexibility allows many academics to use their academic affiliation for personal gain, and although this must be disclosed to a superior on an annual basis, it is not made public.

More research will be valuable. Pushing for greater transparency through disclosure, as evidenced by the American Technology Transparency Project will be productive. Others have advocated for “academic engagement” roles at Large technology companies, which could lead to the publication of articles using the company’s data.

Indeed, many academics have called for more direct collaboration with big tech companies following the whistleblowing of Frances Haugen who leaked thousands of Facebook documents to public authorities. These types of engagements could shift the dynamic from companies sponsoring research that directly serves their interests or stories toward facilitating more independent research using data from major social media platforms.

Overall, these potentially extractive relationships between post-secondary institutions and big tech companies are understudied in Canada. They may be so modest that they do not deserve attention. They may also be much more subtle and sophisticated than we might appreciate at first glance. Perhaps the real questions are: Which researchers might take on this work, who or what will fund it, and whether there will be any implied ramifications for their university’s advancement offices as a result?

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