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Protests over UQ coal seam gas research links

Funding links between the burgeoning coal seam gas (CSG) industry and the University of Queensland have sparked protests and demands on campus that the university guard its research independence. University staff, the National Union of Students, and a coalition of UQ environmental groups say they are worried millions of dollars from energy companies for a new Centre for Coal Seam Gas will influence the centre’s agenda.

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One Comment

  1. There appears to be a protest about this issue because “it hasn’t been properly researched in Australia” and the “evidence is undecided” because “there has never been a full life-cycle assessment of coal seam gas technology”.

    So how can the university be “jumping the gun” if it invests in doing research about something “which hasn’t been properly researched in Australia”? Isn’t the point that research gets done about matters which hasn’t been “properly researched”?

    Should the university not aim to become a world leader in a matter for which the “evidence is undecided”? Are we not supposed to investigate the evidence more fully, until as much is known as we can find out?

    Why should we not be doing this?

  2. Who pays the piper calls the tune.

    As with justice, independence must not just be done but must be seen to be done.

    The “membership model” looks awfully like ‘might makes right’. The best way to avoid the perception that the industry funding could in any way skew the outcome is for the research to be funded from the public purse, or for the industry to pay the money and have no input whatsoever into how the money is applied.

    After all, it is supposed to be for the public good.

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