Should Enquiry Past Times Academics Whose Institutions Have Eu Coin Live On Discredited?

Steve Peers

Should research which Eurosceptics don’t similar last ignored, if the academics who give away it, or the institutions they function for, have got ever received coin from the EU? That’s the insinuation of at to the lowest degree roughly Eurosceptics, non alone inwards response to this week’s research on the positive benefits of the gratis displace of European Union citizens, but likewise as regards me inwards particular. 

It’s tempting to ignore this trouble of argument, as indeed I did when it was outset used against me concluding year. But I suspect that it volition last used over again as well as over again inwards the build-up to a plebiscite on British travel out from the European Union (in the lawsuit that nosotros have got one), inwards an endeavour to directly discredit anyone who submits objective evidence supporting the pro-European side of the debate.  So it’s of import to tackle this trouble of declaration correct now. 

Claims of bias 

First, the most recent case. Following the publication of the study on the economical benefits of gratis movement, co-authored yesteryear Professor  Christian Dustmann of University College London (UCL), Dan Hannan, a (nominally) Conservative Member of the European Parliament (MEP), tweeted that UCL received 53 1000000 euro inwards European Union funding inwards 2013. He stated that he hadn’t been going to advert this, but ‘so many Europhiles object to anyone fifty-fifty *mentioning* the figure’. (The co-author of the paper, Tommasso Frattini, is an Assistant Professor at the University of Milan).

Secondly, my ain case. Last year, I gave evidence at the House of Commons Home Affairs Committee on the UK’s planned opt-out from aspects of European Union policing as well as criminal constabulary (you tin come across the total transcript here). Mark Reckless – as well as hence a Conservative MP, who has since defected to UKIP – asked me well-nigh my sources of funding (see questions 167 as well as 168). First, he asked how much coin I received from the European Union institutions. I replied that almost of my income came from the University of Essex, my principal employer. But I have got done roughly consultancy function occasionally from the European Parliament as well as European Commission. I estimated that the coin from that function constitutes well-nigh 1-2% of my income.   

But that wasn’t plenty for Reckless. He as well as hence asked what funding the University of Essex as a whole received from the EU. He clarified that this referred to all income, non simply whatsoever funding straight linked to my ain research. Since I didn’t have got the figure to hand, I replied that I in that location was no European Union funding straight linked to my ain work, but I assumed that roughly my colleagues across the University had obtained some.

Hannan as well as Reckless are ostensibly at nowadays inwards dissimilar parties, but they are closed friends. While neither of them brand explicit claims of bias (and Reckless could have got hidden behind parliamentary immunity if he had), their questions as well as statements have got an obvious insinuation: that researchers who have coin straight from the EU, or whose employer receives coin from the EU, are biased.

Let’s address these claims inwards contrary order.

Is in that location a pro-EU bias?

First of all, a betoken well-nigh how British parliamentary committees work. I have got given evidence at a issue of them over the years, as well as likewise served as a Special Adviser for 1 research yesteryear the House of Lords Select Committee on the EU. Influenza A virus subtype H5N1 basic characteristic of the procedure of calling witnesses to the committees is that they are informed inwards advance of the questions which they tin aspect to last asked. In the illustration above, I was non informed well-nigh Mark Reckless’ questions. He has at nowadays joined a political party that purports to stand upward up for basic British values; but his conduct toward me displayed neither of the traditional British virtues of skillful manners or fair play.  

So are institutions which have European Union coin biased, leaning on their staff to churn out pro-EU propaganda? At the outset, I tin come across why their ain sense powerfulness Pb Eurosceptics to intend that. Many of them are likewise climate alter deniers, as well as as George Monbiot has pointed out, the principal ‘scientific institutes’ denying climate alter are extensively funded yesteryear the crude as well as gas industry.

Is that truthful of universities though? They all have got to give away independently audited accounts each yr – inwards much the same agency that Nigel Farage does not. So let’s aspect at the UCL figures first, to seat their European Union income inwards perspective. Its total income inwards 2012-13 was £940 million, of which £39 1000000 came from the EU.  That’s 4.1% of their total income.

What well-nigh the University of Essex? If Reckless actually wanted to know how much coin it received from the EU, he could looked at its annual accounts – it’s the outset reference from the University’s entry inwards Wikipedia. But manifestly he was to a greater extent than interested inwards trying to ambush me. 

The Essex accounts exhibit that the University received £2.9 1000000 out of its total income of £146 1000000 from European Union grants. That’s 2.0% of its total income – neatly corresponding to my gauge well-nigh the part of my ain income that comes from the EU. (I should emphasise hither that as always, the opinions I limited are my own, non that of my employer, or anyone else).

Is it possible that the little part of a university’s overall income which comes from the European Union could bias the results of the research function done at that university? While manifestly universities value all of the income which they receive, it is as obvious that whatsoever proven claim of bias would harm the seat of the reputation of the academy as a whole, as well as certainly private researchers’ access to research funding inwards future.  

In the illustration of Essex, for instance, the research coin coming from the European Union is dwarfed yesteryear £20 1000000 inwards funding coming from research councils, as well as £9 1000000 coming from the full general research grant (which is based on an assessment of the character of our staff’s published research). Put bluntly, nosotros would have got a lot to a greater extent than to lose, than to gain, if nosotros produced crap research to satisfy the whims of the European Commission. 

Let me likewise reply this enquiry from personal experience. Throughout my fourth dimension working at the University of Essex, it’s obvious that the University (like all UK of Britain as well as Northern Republic of Ireland universities) wants us to apply for as well as obtain as many research grants as possible, from the European Union as well as anyone else. Of course of didactics nosotros have got to tailor research funding applications to the subject-matter that the funding torso wants to fund inwards this funding round. But I have got never been seat nether the slightest pressure level from my employer to alter the content of my research to ‘suck up’ to the Commission, or anyone else.

This brings me to the instant caput of the argument: that private researchers have got a pro-EU bias because of the European Union funding which they receive. I tin alone beak for myself when answering this point.

Anyone familiar alongside my function would sure express joy at the insinuation that I am a shameless supplicant of the European Union institutions. To accept simply a few examples, I described the EU’s information memory Directive as a ‘sell-out foretold’, as well as simply concluding calendar week on this blog, I characterised a recent CJEU judgment as ‘head-banging’. At 1 conference, Sir Francis Jacobs (a onetime Advocate-General of the CJEU) introduced me as ‘one of the Court’s severest critics’. At roughly other conference, a onetime Council official described how during his fourth dimension at the Council, its fiercest enemies were myself as well as Tony Bunyan, the managing director of Statewatch.

More broadly, my full general impression, based on 2 decades working inwards the field, is that other specialists inwards European Union constabulary as well as politics, similar me, laid out from a broadly pro-European perspective but have got no compunction well-nigh criticising the European Union institutions whenever they intend it’s justifiable.

Finally, there’s at nowadays a considerable irony inwards Reckless’ ambush on my supposed bias. The political party which he has late joined, inwards a desperate bid to obtain European Union funding inside the European Parliament, has brought on board a political party fellow member from a Polish political party whose leader jokes well-nigh violence against women, as well as denies the Holocaust. Even if I had prostrated myself earlier the European Union institutions inwards a bid to have their money, it would have got been a 1000000 times less unethical than teaming upward alongside a Holocaust denier to the same end.

To conform the old saying, people who dishonour the terrible legacy of Kristallnacht shouldn’t throw stones.

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