Studentii UAIC au sansa sa participe la o valoroasa Scoala de Vara in Lituania
Universitatea "Alexandru Ioan Cuza" (UAIC) din Iasi anunta o noua oportunitate educationala internatioalta pentru studenti. Totul e legat de Universitatea de Stiinte Aplicate din Vilnius, Lituania, care invita studentii internationali la Scoala Internationala de Vara care se va desfasura în luna august 2019, în campusul Universitatii, amplasat într-o zona împadurita, la marginea orasului Vilnius.
https://www.bzi.ro/uaic-va-organiza-opt-scoli-de-vara-finantate-din-proiectul-privind-invatamantul-secundar-rose-687250https://www.bzi.ro/uaic-va-organiza-opt-scoli-de-vara-finantate-din-proiectul-privind-invatamantul-secundar-rose-687250
La Scoala Internationala de Vara pot participa atât studentii care au terminat minim un an de cursuri universitare, precum si absolventii de studii de licenta interesati sa îsi dezvolte abilitatile si cunostintele profesionale, sa îsi îmbunatateasca nivelul Limbii engleze, sa exploreze Lituania si sa descopere cultura acestei tari.
"Studentii participanti la acest program vor primi trei credite ECTS. În cadrul acestei Scoli de Vara, studentii vor avea oportunitatea de a realiza vizite la companii.
Costul programului: 400 Euro pentru participanti ce provin de la institutiile partenere ale Universitatii de Stiinte Aplicate din Vilnius; 600 Euro pentru restul participantilor.
Aceasta suma include: taxa de participare, diplomele, cazarea în camin, tichetele pentru transport local, micul dejun si prânzul, programul social. Mai multe detalii gasiti pe pagina oficiala a proiectului: http://summerschool.viko.lt/", au precizat cei de la UAIC.
Publicație : Bună Ziua Iași
TUIASI, gazda prezentării Programului Oficial de Internship al Guvernului
* în acest an vor exista 200 de locuri de internship pentru tinerii din toată ţara care doresc să vadă cum funcţionează structurile executive de conducere a statului, fiind oferite în cadrul a 55 de instituţii ale administraţiei publice şi centrale
Universitatea Tehnică „Gheorghe Asachi” din Iaşi va fi şi în acest an gazdă pentru prezentarea făcută de către Secretariatul General al Guvernului a „Programului Oficial de Internship al Guvernului României”. „Alegerea universităţii noastre ca loc pentru prezentarea către studenţii regiunii de Nord-Est a oportunităţilor privind internshipul în cadrul Guvernului nu este întâmplătoare, ci se bazează pe experienţa noastră în dezvoltarea unor astfel de activităţi, fie în cadrul Politehnicii, fie prin parteneriat cu diferiţi colaboratori. Astfel, în 2018, am derulat programe de internship la Prorectorate, la Direcţia de Servicii Studenţeşti, precum şi la diferite facultăţi, programe la care au participat circa 100 de studenţi”, a declarat prof. univ. dr. ing. Dan Caşcaval, rector al TUIASI.
Programul, ajuns la a VII-a ediţie, se va derula în această vară în perioada 15 iulie - 13 septembrie. Studenţii care urmează să fie selectaţi vor participa la discuţii şi întâlniri de lucru cu miniştri, secretari de stat, specialişti în diferite domenii de competenţă, precum şi la traininguri şi workshopuri tematice.
Pe perioada programului, internii vor beneficia de o indemnizaţie lunară de internship în valoare de 2.080 de lei brut, iar la final vor primi un certificat de internship din partea Secretariatului General al Guvernului. „Partenerii noştri economici ne-au oferit peste 500 de locuri de internship, care au acoperit aproape toate domeniile coordonate în universitate. Ceea ce consider căeste important este faptul că ofertele pentru astfel de programe au venit într-o proporţie destul de importantă din partea unor companii care nu îşi au sediul în judeţul Iaşi sau în judeţele limitrofe, ceea ce evidenţiază clar interesul pe care îl acordă astăzi mediul economic absolvenţilor de studii inginereşti şi de arhitectură”, a completat prof. univ. dr. ing. Dan Caşcaval.
Candidaturile studenţilor pot fi depuse până la data de 19 mai, iar rezultatele finale, după finalizarea procesului de selecţie şi de interviu, vor fi făcute publice pe 28 iunie. Prezentarea va avea loc la sediul Universităţii Tehnice „Gheorghe Asachi” din Iaşi pe 6 mai, va dura aproximativ o oră şi vor fi prezenţi reprezentanţi ai Secretariatului General al Guvernului. Aceasta este prima oprire dintr-un turneu de prezentare desfăşurat de către aceştia în întreagaţara, pe 7 mai urmând a fi în Suceava, pe 8 mai la Cluj-Napoca şi pe 9 mai la Timişoara.
Publicație : Evenimentul și Bună Ziua Iași
Peste 400 elevi vor deveni „studenți pentru o zi” la USAMV
Mâine, la amiază, în Aula Magna a Universității de Științe Agricole și Medicină Veterinară „Ion Ionescu de la Brad” se va desfășura a șasea ediție a proiectului educaţional „Student pentru o zi”, realizat în cadrul parteneriatului pentru practica pedagogică a studenţilor şi cursanţilor DPPD ai USAMV Iaşi şi partenerii ieşeni din învățământul preuniversitar. „La lecțiile demonstrative la practică pedagogică vor fi prezenți peste 400 de elevi, împreună cu 35 cadre didactice de la cele trei licee agricole din județul Iași, de la cele trei licee economice ale Iașului, dar și de la Colegiul „Emil Racoviță”, Colegiul „Costache Negruzzi” și de la Liceul Teoretic „Dimitrie Cantemir”, ne-a precizat conf. univ. dr. Carmen Olguţa Brezuleanu, organizatorul evenimentului.
Așadar, mâine, începând cu ora 12, în Aula Magna a USAMV Iași se vor desfășura scurte prezentări teoretice ale lecțiilor susținute de studenți, cu teme precum cozonacul, lavanda, produsele de patiserie, mierea de albine, tehnici de încondeiere a ouălor, în funcție de profilul la care își desfășoară activitatea participanții.
După prezentarea teoretică, la ora 13, în Sala de Marmură a facultăților de Medicină Veterinară și Zootehnie, vor avea loc degustările de produse, iar apoi toți elevii vor vizita universitatea. „Elevii vor face vizite în laboratoarele de microproducție de la Facultatea de Industrie Alimentară, la biobaza de la Facultatea deZootehnie, în clinicile veterinare și în Muzeul de Anatonie de la Facultatea de Medicină Veterinară, în Ferma „Adamachi”, în laboratorul de Oenologie al Facultății de Horticultură și în baza sportivă. Toți elevii participanți vor vedea ce înseamnă să fii student pentru o zi la USAMV”, a completat conf. univ. dr. Carmen Olguţa Brezuleanu, organizatorul evenimentului.
Publicație : Evenimentul
University can change homeless people's lives, but they need support to get there
My experience running a course empowering homeless people to apply to university showed me how many barriers they face
When Lucy Davis left school at 12, falling into addiction and ultimately homelessness, the last thing she thought she’d be doing at 30 was going to university. But now she’s planning to start a fine art degree in September.
Davis is one of five students – all homeless and mostly recovering from addiction – who have applied to university after enrolling in a new pre-university access module at the University of Chichester. The module is designed to empower vulnerable people with the confidence and skills to apply for degree courses.
I was motivated to develop the module after I was asked to develop a resilience workshop by the local homelessness charity, Stonepillow. I was struck by the extent to which “being intelligent” and “being educated” are not the same. Lots of the homeless people I met at these workshops had not been privileged enough to receive a good education. They would never even have considered going to university, but that doesn’t mean they weren’t capable of doing so.
Supporting homeless people to achieve their potential matters now more than ever. The latest figures from the charity Crisis show that homelessness has increased by 60% since 2012, reaching 320,000 people. This has created a modern-day diaspora with no clear pathway back into society. For this vulnerable group, with complex needs exacerbated by barriers to basic services such as housing, health, employment and benefits, attending university is low on the list of aspirations. Yet for many, a university education will help them get their lives fully on track, enabling them to find fulfilling work and a regular income.
Many homeless students are nervous about entering higher education, since they lose access to benefits as soon as they receive a student loan. Universities need to work harder to make these students understand that they will not be losing out: the loan equates to nearly the same value as their lost benefits, they can apply for additional financial support through a hardship fund, and they can work during the holidays, which would otherwise cause them to lose their benefits.
There are other more practical barriers, such as the initial £18 payment to complete the Ucas application form, or the way not having a long-term permanent address interferes with the registration process. Many homeless people have moved around so often that they no longer have proof of prior qualifications.
According to research by Patrick Mulrenan from London Metropolitan University, homeless students often don’t use available pastoral support and financial advice. This is why the homelessness module we designed introduces students to crucial support team members before starting their degree, so they know who to turn to for information or when crises occur. This is particularly important given that many people recovering from addiction or who have experienced homelessness are struggling from mental health problems.
It’s also important to listen to homeless people to find out what their needs are. At Chichester, we created the module in collaboration with the homeless students themselves, aiming to develop and assess academic skills to ensure they are ready for the first year of university. We are using lived experience to develop academic reading, writing and research skills, self-confidence, self-esteem and self-belief. Honest and insightful links are made between themes like emotional intelligence, reflective practice, decision-making skills, critical thinking and past, often painful, experiences.
While the project is small-scale and localised, we hope that this concept will gain momentum. The students know passing the module and starting a degree is only the beginning of a journey full of challenges, but they are motivated by a renewed sense of hope. Despite this, there is remarkably little evidence or data on how this vulnerable group accesses and experiences university.
Innovative courses such as the master’s-level course in homeless and inclusion health at the University of Edinburgh raise awareness of homelessness within higher education, and support the development of effective professional skills. But more direct work needs to be done by universities to offer a different future for those trying to leave homelessness behind.
But we need government support. The module at Chichester would not have run without the money the local homelessness charity raised through crowdfunding. Only with a stable funding stream will universities be able to work together to become part of the solution to the growing problem of homelessness.
Publicație : The Guardian
UK universities must break their silence around harassment and bullying
The £87m spent on ‘gagging orders’ is part of a wider lack of transparency in the way universities handle staff misconduct
The revelation that UK universities have spent around £87m on payoffs to staff that come with “gagging orders” in the past two years has again highlighted concerns that such secretive clauses are being used to conceal the extent of harassment and bullying at higher education institutions.
Dozens of academics told BBC News they were “harassed” out of their jobs and forced to sign non-disclosure agreements (NDAs) by their university after making complaints. Although the BBC admits it does not know how many of these gagging clauses relate to sexual misconduct or other kinds of harassment or bullying, the findings highlight a wider lack of transparency in the way universities handle all kinds of misconduct and discrimination.
When the Guardian sent freedom of information requests to more than 120 UK universities in 2016 about the scale of sexual harassment by university staff, only three institutions confirmed that they had used NDAs or confidentiality clauses in settlements for complaints. However, since then I have become aware of three more universities who used such clauses in sexual misconduct cases. Whether those institutions deliberately misled me is hard to prove. Anecdotally, I’ve been told that some universities’ legal departments have determined that NDAs trump their duties under freedom of information law to reveal the existence of such gagging clauses. If such legal advice is widespread, then the information commissioner needs to step in.
The BBC’s investigation found that many universities do not record the reasons why a gagging clause was used. It is likely that many were used in unrelated redundancy and severance deals, as this has become standard practice in many industries, not just higher education. However, BBC reporter Rianna Croxford told me that “some people … said they had to ‘choose’ what their NDA was over ie employment, harassment, or racism and this affects how it’s recorded”. This is consistent with my own investigations, where sexual harassment victims said their complaints had been reclassified as being about “poor performance” to avoid the risk of reputational damage to the university, and make it easier for perpetrators to find work elsewhere. In other words, this made it easier for the university to pass the buck on to another institution.
The sexual misconduct scandal at Goldsmiths, University of London illustrates just how damaging this secrecy can be. The Guardian was told the names of several male members of staff who were allegedly the subject of inquiries at Goldsmiths between 2013 and 2014 following complaints from students about harassment and sexual misconduct. Settlements were made and some staff left, but many of the details could not be reported because parties involved signed a confidentiality agreement. Furthermore, students wanted to know whether any of the alleged perpetrators were still at the university, and, if not, whether other institutions were aware of the claims against them. Only when Prof Sara Ahmed, who resigned from her post at the university in the summer of 2016, blew the whistle did the scandal emerge.
Astrophysicist Emma Chapman, one of the harassment complainants interviewed by the BBC, and other campaigners against sexual misconduct at universities want to prevent NDAs being used to hide criminal conduct and institutional mishandling of harassment and discrimination complaints. They are calling for a code of conduct governing gagging clauses and want the government to enforce this with legislation. An inquiry by the women and equalities select committee may add to the pressure on ministers and higher education regulators to take robust action.
But NDAs are just one way in which universities manage to silence victims and suppress scandals. Many victims have told me how they were isolated and gaslighted by the managers they reported complaints to, or were pressured to make informal, rather than formal, complaints by investigators or HR. (Conveniently, many universities do not record informal complaints.) Chapman’s own experience at University College London illustrates the chilling effect of secrecy in university complaints procedures. After she submitted a subject access request for all the documents about her case, the files the university disclosed were heavily redacted. Although she refused to sign an NDA and agreed a confidentiality waiver with UCL, many questions remained about the internal investigation. Only when I queried its findings with UCL did it emerge that the initial findings against her alleged harasser had been overturned in a secret appeal hearing that she had not been party to.
Such clandestine university procedures make trying to uncover the scale of harassment and bullying incredibly challenging and frustrating. But this problem goes beyond the challenges of investigative reporting: universities are denying victims fair access to information that enables them to properly fight bullies and harassers, which could prevent perpetrators from continuing their abusive behaviour. This has to stop.
Publicație : The Guardian
UCU must stand up for academic freedom on sex and gender
Scholars of feminism attract an overwhelming amount of intimidation; their right to explore controversial issues demands explicit protection, say Alice Sullivan, Judith Suissa, Holly Smith and Lesley Gourlay
We will be taking a motion supporting academic freedom to discuss sex and gender to the 2019 University and College Union (UCU) congress next month. While the union has a stated position in favour of academic freedom in general terms, it has shied away from making any statement on the harassment of feminist academics.
Academics who do not adhere to a particular line on gender and transgender issues have suffered intimidation by trans activists, including students and colleagues who seek to silence them.
These scholars have faced campaigns of blacklisting and smears, no platforming and professional disinvitations, organised efforts to get them fired, and rape and death threats. The level of hostility, hatred and often overtly misogynistic bullying faced by these scholars does not compare to anything we have seen in other debates within academia, even the most contentious.
The divide between trans activists and their opponents is a split within the left, rather than a left-right divide. Trade unionist women, led by A Woman’s Place UK, have led grass-roots calls for proper consultation with women regarding proposed changes to the Gender Recognition Act. They have consistently worked with trans women who share their concerns regarding, for example, same-sex exemptions in the Equality Act, women’s sports and child safeguarding, yet trans activists have attempted to shut down their meetings, using tactics such as bomb threats to venues.
Long-standing gay rights campaigners have demanded that Stonewall reconsider its approach to transgender policy and engage fully in debate on the issue. A recent Open University conference on prison reform was cancelled after being targeted by trans activists because the director of the Centre for Crime and Justice Studies opposed housing trans women with female prisoners.
The UCU has rightly called out threats to academic freedom posed by government interference, but it has not commented on the silencing of dissent on this issue, which has grave potential to damage the wider progressive movement.
This is a difficult issue for the union because activists are divided on the substantive issues. However, the concept of academic freedom is meaningless if it does not extend to those with whom one disagrees. The UCU’s official statement on academic freedom recognises that the issue is bound up with broader civil liberties and human rights, and that academics must be free to express their opinions on matters of public interest, which may touch upon controversial or sensitive topics. This statement is hollow if not applied consistently.
As trade unionists, political activists and critical scholars, we are as equally motivated by a concern for social justice as our critics, though we see the issues differently. We recognise the discrimination faced by trans people and the importance of defending their human rights.
It is a sound principle of both political and academic work that we should listen to the voices of people from marginalised groups when discussing issues that affect them. The language used to define sex and gender, and the implications of these definitions for issues of public policy, including healthcare, education and child safeguarding, affects us all.
It is thus misleading to construe disagreements on these issues as a debate between “feminists” and “trans people”. Indeed, trans people who have asserted that “gender identity” does not supersede biological sex and should not replace sex as a protected characteristic have also faced bullying by activists. A culture of silencing is dangerous and counterproductive, particularly for vulnerable groups. This has been exposed most sharply by recent resignations from the Tavistock Gender Identity Clinic of doctors concerned about the hormonal and surgical procedures offered to children.
In the current climate, even articulating any of the following points as a basis for discussion can lead to accusations of transphobia, and to bullying and harassment: Humans have two sexes, male and female; females are the sex that produce large immobile gametes called ova; males are the sex that produce small mobile gametes called sperm; women are adult human females; women do not have penises; homosexuality is same-sex attraction; a transwoman who transitions as an adult has not always been female.
At a time when the recent gains of the feminist movement and the gay rights movement are under attack by the forces of the far right, it is vital to distinguish between those who seek to uphold the rights of all groups who continue to suffer from patriarchal and racist oppression, and those who uphold an explicitly sexist and racist ideology.
Authoritarian anti-intellectualism on the far right is unlikely to be defeated by its mirror image on the left, and we believe that defending academic freedom, while opposing all forms of authoritarian politics, is a basic function of our union.
Publicație : The Times
Quality bodies urged to tackle higher education ‘corruption’
Study finds evidence of widespread, worldwide corruption in HE and lack of action from quality assurance bodies to stop it
A report that details “significant corruption” in higher education worldwide – including professors with fake doctoral degrees in Russia and officials at a Japanese university adjusting results to keep out female students – warns that quality bodies lack the mechanisms to uncover and root out corruption.
Researchers from Coventry University undertook an in-depth literature review and conducted an international survey of quality assurance bodies around the world. Their report, sponsored and published by the Council for Higher Education Accreditation – the US group of degree-awarding institutions – and its International Quality Group, not only finds “significant corruption in higher education” but also that quality bodies around the world often lack the procedures necessary to unearth corruption.
The researchers surveyed 69 quality assurance bodies from Europe, North, South and Central America, Africa, the Middle East and Asia-Pacific, as well as conducting interviews with 22 leaders of these bodies and with higher education experts. Although quality assurance bodies have a range of sanctions to apply if they find corruption, “most methods adopted for evaluating institutions are unlikely to uncover evidence of corruption”, says the report, Policies and Actions of Accreditation and Quality Assurance Bodies to Counter Corruption in Higher Education.
For example, quality assurance bodies rely too heavily on institutional self-assessments and planned visits. “You are not going to find corruption this way; it won’t automatically surface,” Irene Glendinning, academic manager for student experience at Coventry and a co-author of the report, told Times Higher Education.
The most significant finding was how little quality assurance agencies were doing about corruption and how low it was on their agenda. Many felt that it was not part of their remit, said Professor Glendinning.
“And the 69 quality assurance agencies who actually responded to our survey are the ones who are most aware of corruption, but there are more,” she said. “We found evidence of corruption everywhere, not just those that you expect but every country in the world…If quality assurance agencies and accreditation bodies are really interested in standards, they should be looking for this and doing something.”
Despite the evidence of dishonesty in the regulatory process – such as corruption in the appointment of institutional leaders or unqualified panel members, in the form of bribery, nepotism or favouritism – 64 per cent of respondents expressed no concerns about this type of corruption. Recent investigations in Russia into the qualifications of university rectors revealed that in the past 15 years, 60 of 300 successfully defended dissertations by current rectors had been 100 per cent plagiarised.
The report also found that less than one-third of questionnaire respondents expressed any concerns about corruption in teaching despite evidence of its prevalence, according to Professor Glendinning.
The paper reported examples of teachers being pressured to pass students and of management imposing “standardisation” on student grades to counter high failure rates. Other examples of corruption in teaching included staff demanding sexual favours from students in return for better grades. The report also pointed out that gender discrimination was still evident in a number of countries: in 2018, Tokyo Medical University was revealed to have systematically rigged its admissions to exclude many women.
The level of awareness of and action to tackle corruption varies across the world, said Professor Glendinning. Russia, Nigeria, India, the western Balkans and other areas show a high awareness of the problem but not necessarily action.
Professor Glendinning highlighted the UK’s Quality Assurance Agency and Australia’s Tertiary Education Quality and Standards Agency, as well as similar bodies in New Zealand, the Republic of Ireland and, “to some extent, the US and Canada” for taking active roles in stamping out corruption, “but there are still gaps”.
The report makes a series of recommendations for agencies. Among these are actively monitoring and responding to suspicions of misconduct and arranging site visits at short notice to counter potential gaming of the quality assurance or accreditation process. Other recommendations for agencies include taking the lead in advocating for legislation to counter threats from diploma mills, accreditation mills and contract cheating companies and also collaborating with local and international bodies.
Professor Glendinning added that tackling the problem was also a task for governments and policymakers because “everyone has a role in helping these bodies to do better”.
In some countries, however, quality bodies must navigate a complicated environment. The report found numerous examples of political interference that threatens the autonomy of higher education institutions in several countries, such as Australia, Brazil, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Turkey and the US. Examples included governments intervening in institutional decisions, banning subjects from the curriculum, imprisoning academics who disagree with the prevailing political climate and overriding research funding decisions, complicating the issue for quality bodies.
The report warns that “without effective oversight and accountability, covering all aspects of an educational system, there is no way of knowing whether learning and teaching is effective, whether research has been conducted rigorously and ethically, and whether academic qualifications of results from research can be trusted”.
Publicație : The Times
Essex plans to grow staff numbers on back of student recruitment boom
University aims to create 100 new academic and 50 new professional posts at a time of overall gloom about UK university finances
Ambitious plans for the University of Essex’s biggest ever expansion in staff numbers are driven by a desire to benefit students while increasing “research power” and come off the back of big growth in student numbers – during a time of overall pessimism about UK university finances.
The university has announced proposals to create 100 new academic and 50 new professional posts, in what would be the largest expansion of staff in its 55-year history.
The plans come at a time of job cuts and warnings over serious financial problems at other universities, rising pension costs for institutions and fears over the potential impact of Brexit on research funding and student recruitment.
The expansion is “the product of a lot of careful thought and hard work...over the last five years or so”, Essex vice-chancellor Anthony Forster told Times Higher Education. The investment in a “step-change in staffing” is in response to record levels of student recruitment, increased levels of external funding for research and the university’s overall financial health.
The increase in staff levels will be funded by increased student numbers, “cash surpluses” generated of 4 to 6 per cent of income per year and work on economies of scale. There has been an increase in student applications since 2013, with a 52 per cent growth in undergraduate enrolments and a 19 per cent increase in postgraduate enrolments.
George Osborne, the former chancellor, abolished student number controls at English universities in 2015. And while that policy to create a market in recruitment has led to big drops in student numbers and resulting financial worries at some universities, others have been able to expand.
Professor Forster said that being recognised as THE University of the Year, achieving teaching excellence framework gold, improved league table positions and being in the top 15 for student satisfaction in the National Student Survey have all helped make Essex attractive to both students and academics.
Essex’s new strategic plan includes further increasing student numbers from about 16,000 at present to about 20,000 students by 2025. The university aims to reduce the student-to-staff ratio from about 16.3:1 to about 14.5:1.
“We know that students tell us that investment in staff really matters to them,” said Professor Forster.
He added: “Growing the number of researchers will help us in terms of research power as well as research quality.”
Essex hopes to double the number of staff submissions to the research excellence framework in 2021 compared with 2014 numbers, to a new total of 640.
But will Brexit throw a spanner in the works of Essex’s expansion plans? Thirty per cent of staff and 40 per cent of students at the university are from outside the UK.
“We are a global university and any negative impact of Brexit on UK higher education would be a concern to us, but we are not just a passive bystander in this,” said Professor Forster.
Restating the case for global Britain “matters more than ever” and regional offices have been opened across the world and international staff reassured, he added.
“We are not just accepting that Brexit is something that will happen and that we have very few ways in which we can respond,” he continued.
“There are many, many, things we can do and we are doing to make sure we get our fair share of fantastic students from the EU 27 countries and likewise on recruiting international staff.”
Publicație : The Times
Big tech funding AI ethics research to ‘delay and avoid’ regulation
Philosopher calls on universities to take AI debate ‘out of the hands of the industry’ and end ‘ethics washing’
One of Europe’s leading philosophers has called on universities to take the debate about the ethical use of artificial intelligence “out of the hands of the industry” and warned that big technology firms are funding academic research in the area to create the illusion of action and so stall real regulation.
Thomas Metzinger, a professor at the Johannes Gutenberg University of Mainz, said that corporations hoping to profit from AI had created an “industry” of “ethics washing”.
This is an attempt to “organise and cultivate ethical debates in order to delay, postpone, avoid…policymaking and regulation. And that is something you find everywhere right now,” he told university leaders at the European University Association annual conference in Paris.
“There is a high responsibility for European universities to take the ethics debates on artificial intelligence out of the hands of the industry now, and put them on a more neutral and serious academic platform,” he added.
The debate over “ethics washing” has flared up in Germany after the Technical University of Munich (TUM) earlier this year accepted a $7.5 million (£5.7 million) donation from Facebook to found a new AI ethics research centre.
“TUM has done great damage to its reputation in my view, by accepting money from Facebook,” Professor Metzinger said.
“Nobody believes that this is a sincere initiative by Facebook,” he said, adding that there were “all kinds of these strange relationships” between academia and technology companies that compromised research independence.
Christoph Lütge, head of the new centre, said that it had “no obligation” towards Facebook as a result of the gift. “Facebook has really understood that it needs to change its approach,” he said.
“Even if we question the motivations of a company, what counts for ethics is the outcome” and the impact on policy and wider society, he argued.
A spokesman for Facebook said the firm did not wish to comment.
Professor Metzinger is part of an EU panel of 52 experts that has drawn up ethical guidelines for the use of AI, now being piloted in companies and research institutes.
These guidelines were “strongly industry-dominated” and had “no real normative substance” on “concrete recommendations”, he said. Nonetheless, they were the “best thing we have on the planet right now”, he said, and meant that Europe has taken a global lead on ethical AI.
The EU should spend an eighth of its AI research budget on initiatives exploring the ethical implications of the technology, Professor Metzinger argued.
The conference also heard from Magnus Rattray, director of the University of Manchester’s Data Science Institute, who agreed with Professor Metzinger’s ethics washing concerns. “I think it’s much better if big tech pays tax and then governments fund these kind of centres,” he said.
But he also faced questions over corporate funding of research at the UK’s new Alan Turing Institute, an AI and data science-focused centre with which Professor Rattray is involved.
Industry money was “ringfenced for their particular projects and does not leak into other funded aspects of the programmes”, he said.
Companies possess “a huge amount of data”, making it “quite difficult to envisage an AI and data science national institute that doesn’t work with business”, he added.
Publicație : The Times
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