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Prof Lianos leads effort to promote disclosure rules for corporate sponsorship of academic research
16 July 2018
Professor Lianos, Director of the UCL Centre for Law, Economics and Society, leads effort to promote proper disclosure rules for corporate sponsorship of academic research
For the past academic year Professor Ioannis Lianos headed a committee on professional ethics put in place by The Academic Society for Competition Law (ASCOLA), the international association of academics (lawyers and economists) doing research in competition law and policy. Following a few months of preparatory work, which involved the gathering of information about instances of undisclosed corporate funding of academic research, the UCL Centre for Law Economics and Society organised a very successful workshop in Brussels, in cooperation with ASCOLA and the Association of Competition Economists (ACE), with the participation of a number of stakeholders, from competition authorities, law firms and economic consultancies.
The committee prepared the Declaration on ethics, which was voted unanimously by the ASCOLA General Assembly in New York on June 23, 2018. The Declaration aims to regulate the conduct of researchers in competition law on the basis of the following general principles:
1. Objectivity and Independence: All scholarship should express the personal and independent opinions of the author(s) without any bias and without any interference by any third party.
2. Transparency: Authors should appropriately identify all sources of what could reasonably be perceived as bias and make appropriate disclosure of any and all affiliations that could reasonably be perceived as a source of bias. Except for good (and disclosed) reasons, empirical work should make data and methods available to permit replication. As discussed below, appropriate disclosure may at various times be on the publication itself, to a possible or actual publisher, or on the author’s publicly-available web page.
3. Fairness: All scholarship should make fair use and assessment of research findings and represent as faithfully as possible the different opinions and views expressed in the article
The Declaration will be gradually implemented through an active campaign, managed by Professor Lianos, promoting the principles of the Declaration with academic journals and Universities, and a global public pledge campaign with the participation of a number of corporations and other organisations that have been known to fund academic research in the area of competition law and policy.