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Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science

2012: The Society provided a submission to the International Council for Science (ICSU) Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science (CFRS) on the ‘muzzling’ of scientists and scientific institutions and the protection of whistle-blowers, in consultation with its members, Fellows and constituent organisations.

The submission notes that scientific freedom of communication and expression is influenced by a number of factors including:

  • commercial confidentiality
  • seeking to improve the professionalism of public communication
  • funding pressures
  • cost avoidance and the administrative burden of legal action and official information requests.

The desire to expose fraudulent information and misconduct is strongly felt, but the perception among the science community is that the protection of whistle-blowers is effectively very weak.

Download the paper here