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The Woolf Inquiry and a Question of Ethics

The Woolf Inquiry and a Question of Ethics . Dr John Hogan Registrar 15 February 2012. Background.

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The Woolf Inquiry and a Question of Ethics

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  1. The Woolf Inquiry and a Question of Ethics Dr John Hogan Registrar 15 February 2012

  2. Background • March 2011 the previous Director of the London School of Economics, Sir Howard Davies, resigned over the scandal arising from the acceptance of benefactions from the Gaddafi government and the PhD awarded to Saif al-Islam Gaddafi, a son of the Libyan leader. • November 2011 LSE published the inquiry conducted by Lord Woolf into LSE’s links with Libya.

  3. LSE and Libya • Extensive links between LSE and Libya developed over last ten years, not all of which were open to criticism, but when taken together had tied the reputation of the institution to that of the Gaddafi government. • Sir Howard Davies was appointed as the Prime Minister’s economic envoy to Libya.

  4. The Benefaction and the PhD • The main controversy was around a donation of £1.5 million promised to the Centre for Global Governance by the Gaddafi International Charity and Development Foundation in July 2009 - the same day as the graduation ceremony at which Saif received his PhD.

  5. The PhD Admission • Admission of Saif - initially rejected for postgraduate study by the Management Department and the Department for Government before being admitted to the Philosophy Department with a research proposal on global governance. • The inquiry notes “The individual departments at the LSE have a considerable and fiercely defended autonomy as to admissions to postgraduate degrees.”

  6. PhD support • Departments vary considerably in the amount of support they are willing/able to give PhD students. The report notes the “idealism in the Philosophy Department” which led it to take decisions which other departments refused. • Substantial additional assistance with Saif’s PhD which stretched to the appointment of another PhD student as an informal student mentor, who “travel[led] with him while he jetted around Europe and while they were on the plane he would be briefing Saif” and tutoring him in Philosophy. In addition, there was external assistance and this has been considered by the separate review into plagiarism.

  7. The Benefaction • £1.5 million promised to the Centre for Global Governance. • It was recognised as controversial and went to the LSE’s Council twice. • Presentation of the donation had serious errors and it appears that there was a risk that the money was to come from payments made by private companies operating in Libya to gain Saif’s favour and influence the award of contracts in Libya. This was not communicated to the Council. • Cryptic wording on the Council agenda. • Initially the proposal was presented orally by the Director of the Centre who would receive the gift with no accompanying papers.

  8. Recommendations • Woolf makes 15 recommendations which can be summarised as follows: • The LSE should have an embedded Code dealing with ethics and reputational risk which applies across the institution. A committee should be established to deal with issues relating to the Ethics Code. • LSE should achieve greater uniformity of practice for the admission and support of PhD students; there should be an academic body, staffed by academics from across the institution, charged with oversight of the admission of postgraduate students and their continuing programme of work.

  9. Recommendationscont’d • The LSE should adopt, as an institution, an up-to-date policy on donations. The donations policy should include a procedure for the scrutiny of proposed donations with clear lines of responsibility. The donations policy should identify whether, and in what circumstances, it is appropriate for an individual centre or department to request a donation on their own initiative. The School should set out written guidelines on the appropriate relationship between the LSE and a donor.

  10. Where does this leave us? • Ethical Policy for the Acceptance of Corporate Gifts and Donations http://www.ncl.ac.uk/giving/people/donors/documents/DAROethicalpolicy.pdf • PhDs: Existing admissions Code of Practice which all faculties follow should be reconsidered in light of Woolf. The PGR sub-committee of UTLSEC is currently looking at the status of progression reports.

  11. Code of Ethics • Principles and values in Vision 2021. • Ethics Committee for research and teaching issues. • Executive Board’s terms of reference include responsibility for business related ethical issues. • We have a range of policies and procedures concerning staff conduct, including a policy on standards of behaviour.

  12. What Else? • University Code of Ethics • York and Exeter have gone further • http://admin.exeter.ac.uk/ethics/ethics_policy.pdf • http://www.york.ac.uk/staff/research/governance/policies/ethics-code/ • Bribery Act • Internationalisation

  13. Reasons to be chary • Confucius Institute approved by Senate. • We were asked by a School to approve a studentship where the funder was the Egyptian Armaments Authority – we said no. • We have government contracts to teach students from Bahrain (Bahrain Defence Force) and Syria.

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