'Public register of part-time jobs helps to safeguard scientific integrity'
There should be a public, national register of professors' part-time jobs, Minister Robbert Dijkgraaf indicated earlier this week. "If you want to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, a public register helps to guarantee scientific integrity," responds AObsector director Donald Pechler.
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It is actually very simple, said Minister Dijkgraaf this week in current affairs program Nieuwsuur. “We just need to have a website where you can see what other jobs a professor or researcher has.” Before the end of this calendar year, the universities must hand him a plan on how they want to create the register. “It is not a casual matter,” he added. According to him, the universities are not feeling the urgency enough and good registration should be given more priority.
The reasoning is: who pays, has influence. The public should be aware if, for example, a pulmonologist is sponsored by a cigarette manufacturer. It helps to weigh the information. If researchers fail to report their part-time jobs or financiers, he believes that a sanction may also follow. But the universities themselves must take care of that.
Mess
The question is whether it will succeed, because the issue has been going on since 2008 and previous attempts have failed. Last spring reported Nieuwsuur, after two years of questions and litigation, that the registration of part-time jobs and financing of professors is still a mess. About a year ago, the Volkskrant en Folia articles about the double hats of professors of tax law and fiscal economics.
In the spring, chairman Pieter Duisenberg (Universities of the Netherlands) responded unequivocally: “This is not possible. We have to do something about this. Transparency is the cornerstone. So when you use your expertise, everyone should be able to weigh up whether you are dependent.”
The universities still support this, but there are legal and technical questions, says spokesman Ruben Puylaert of the university association. For example, the universities must take into account privacy issues. The registration of ancillary activities must be improved, but a national register “wasn't exactly our first idea,” says Puylaert. Among other things, the universities are raising awareness among their employees that it is important to report side jobs and funding.
The universities don't say it out loud, but they want to protect their employees against browsing in additional positions and the resulting insinuations. They prefer not to make it too easy to search for ancillary positions. You currently have to go to the web page of specific researchers to find their part-time jobs – if they are already well-recorded, because there also seems to be little control over that at the moment.
Guarantees
"There are all kinds of registers for ancillary positions, for example for judges and politicians in the Senate and House of Representatives, top civil servants for the police or the national government. If you want to avoid any appearance of a conflict of interest, a public register helps to guarantee scientific integrity," responds Donald Pechler, AOb- sector manager for scientific education and research. "You may wonder why the sector cannot set up a comparable register such as that already exists for judges, politicians or top civil servants. Why would such a register conflict in advance with the privacy rules of the GDPR? You can have that tested by the Dutch Data Protection Authority. The Minister can still make such a register mandatory."
In fact, the inventory must already have been made at the universities. Now the introduction of the register.
Since August this year, the sectoral regulation for ancillary activities for universities has been adapted to the Transparent and Predictable Employment Conditions Act. In principle, prior notification of ancillary activities is mandatory, with exceptions. "It seems to me that when scientific integrity is at stake in specific additional positions, the integrity of the university is also damaged," continues Pechler. "If all goes well, all employees, including professors, must have reported all their ancillary activities. The inventory must therefore have already been made at the universities. Now the introduction of the register remains."
