Navigating “Soft” Conflicts of Interest
Critically considering the impact of funding on research outputs
Written by the CHIRON Project Team
Published on July 2, 2024
Critically considering the impact of funding on research outputs
Written by the CHIRON Project Team
Published on July 2, 2024
A growing body of work critiques the at times perverse and undemocratic influence of private philanthropy in research (e.g. Linsey McGoey’s No Such Thing as a Free Gift, Anand Giridharadas’s Winners Take All, Tim Schwab’s The Bill Gates Problem). Federal funding is not absent of critique, especially when the governmental source is involved in controversy.1,2 However, for individual research scientists, pursuing funding is often a matter of “taking what one can get” in order to further their research goals. This piece is meant to help researchers think critically about the influence of funding in research, potentially beyond the scope of what may be declared in a conflict of interest statement.
Indeed, what constitutes a financial or non-financial conflict of interest is highly variable among journal policies, and institutional review boards struggle to confront the ambiguous shape of competing interests in research. While some literature on nonfinancial conflicts of interest suggests that even strongly held beliefs can be a source of bias worthy of disclosure,3 social science scholarship, and particularly feminist scholarship, often rejects the idea that neutrality in relationship to a research topic is possible or even desirable.4 In CHIRON community engagement studios, our community experts largely saw community membership or ideological commitment as positive attributes of researchers studying their communities. A key concern of our community experts was that funding sources can shape the conclusions researchers make about their object of study, particularly as a function of “soft” influence, outside the scope of the perhaps better known relationship between explicit industry funding and study results.5
Take, for instance, the MSSNG database, an open-access genomic database of genetic material relevant to autism research run by—among other collaborating institutions—Autism Speaks. Autism Speaks is a source of controversy in autism advocacy communities for their past messaging around seeking a cure for autism (a position that Autism Speaks currently does not support). The launch of the MSSNG database was met with criticism from autistic people not only because of its sponsor but also its branding; social media users created the hashtag #NotMssng, taking the name to mean that “they, the autistic individual or autistics collectively, were missing or are missing something” (emphasis in original).6 While the critiques of the MSSNG database are ultimately structural in nature, it is worthwhile for researchers using this data to interrogate how the mission and (un)trustworthiness of the funder may impact how they use the data in their research. Does this research question address quality-of-life concerns prioritized by autistic people? Or does it contribute to an effort to “find a cure?” Taking into account situations like that of the MSSNG database, CHIRON Tools 2 and 5 ask researchers to consider concerns or controversy that have been raised about datasets with regard to the funding source. These tools ask researchers to get to know their datasets not just for the fields they contain but also the resources contributed to their creation.
Furthermore, funding sources may shape the lens through which illness and disease is conceptualized. In PTSD: A Short History, Allan Horwitz details how the research that codified the characteristics of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) was primarily case reports, empirical studies, epidemiological research, and health record research funded by the Veterans Administration and the National Institute of Mental Health in the United States. As such, PTSD was paradigmatically characterized as a disorder of veterans of the US war in Vietnam, at times brought on by perpetrating trauma against the civilian population.7,8 Further primary research and systematic reviews (with more diverse funding sources) expanded clinical understanding of PTSD, especially in relation to sexual violence,8 but recognition of the accumulating trauma of being a civilian in a war zone is a rather recent development in research literature.7 The veteran-centric and broadly American-centric nature of funding sources shaped the space in which PTSD was researched and diagnostic criteria were created. For individual researchers, their contribution to shaping this narrative may be negligible, but one may still critically consider the role of their funding source in knowledge production writ large—which patients and ideas are taking center stage.
Indeed, the question of who applies to grant recipients as well. A 2009 study in The Lancet revealed how the overwhelming recipients of funding from the Gates Foundation were institutions and researchers in the US and UK, despite the health research focus of the foundation on diseases that affect people in the Global South disproportionately, such as malaria, tuberculosis, and neglected tropical diseases. While this study does not account for grant sub-recipients, many of whom are likely researchers in the Global South collaborating with major US and UK universities, it does appear to broadly reflect the skewing of resources toward the Global North that is well-documented in the literature.9 Although researchers all over the globe are passionate about addressing pressing health questions, critics have called attention to the ways in which Global North, technical, philanthrocapitalist biases transfer from the funder to the research outputs.9,10 In a piece on the “agenda setting” influence of the Gates Foundation,11 Anne-Emanuelle Birn discusses one of the Gates “Grand Challenges” funding calls:
In other words, seekers of this funding may inadequately situate their research in its proper context, especially if the context is on the other side of the world. One way of approaching soft conflicts of interest is to build ties with the impacted community—for example, through collaboration with researchers within that community. However, these ties do not relieve the responsibility of every researcher to thoughtfully interrogate how their funding source contributes to creating knowledge and proposing solutions.
Loewenstein A. The Palestine Laboratory: How Israel Exports the Technology of Occupation Around the World. First published. Verso; 2023.
Abu El-Haj N. Combat Trauma: Imaginaries of War and Citizenship in Post-9/11 America. Verso; 2022.
Horwitz AV. PTSD: A Short History. Johns Hopkins University Press; 2018.