Science doesn’t need de-risking, but researchers do need protection

Scientific research is at increased risk because of heightened pressure on it in a new political era. We are seeing scientific institutions being asked, or forced, to retreat from international collaborations, or to step back from fields of research; data being withdrawn and academic expertise lost; systematic questioning of the epistemological foundations of the scientific method; coordinated attacks on science by interest groups and national governments; and increased and unprecedented harassment against individual scientists.

One unwelcome feature of these changes is increased attacks on academic projects and individual scientists by various state and non-state actors intent on discrediting their research, delegitimising their competencies and, ultimately, silencing them. This phenomenon has grown in recent years, as have attacks on science in general. Individual scientists or their academic projects are increasingly threatened, pressured or disparaged via social and traditional media. In some cases, the scientific debates are distorted.

Examples abound of scientists being taken to court or threatened with legal action if they continue to pursue their research. Agitators disrupted a recent international scientific event at Paris City University, organised by a European consortium funded by Horizon Europe with the goal of exploring the biological and clinical mechanisms of long Covid symptoms after infection by Sars-Cov‑2. Despite security controls, several individuals wearing black masks violently disrupted a discussion taking place within a research team, attacking the project and its academics.

And it was not the first time: the two organisers of the event have been subjected to continuous attacks on social media, including death threats, since 2020. Some of their European colleagues, also present in Paris that day, have experienced similar maltreatment in their home countries. This trend is not new, and social media is increasing violence directed at individuals and institutions to unprecedented levels. In all cases, academics expect to be listened to, understood and protected by their employer and institution, and most often they are.

Science is inherently risky

In this context, academic institutions increasingly find themselves between a rock and a hard place, as many governments, in the name of research security and through the introduction of numerous protocols, standards, procedures and rules, try to ‘reduce risks’ instead of adopting better strategies for risk management in science.

But the danger of “de-risking”, to use European Commission president Ursula von der Leyen’s term, coined in a speech about China in 2023, is that it leads to avoiding risk altogether. This logic of avoidance is simply not adapted to the work of science. Because scientific research requires following unexpected leads and elaborating new hypotheses, it is inherently risky. When you begin a research project, you rarely know where it will lead. Negative results are common, but in some cases you make groundbreaking discoveries that may be called into question by new discoveries. You never know in advance.

The logic of de-risking ends in stifling the spirit of researchers, and is the exact opposite of the logic of scientific enquiry.

Protecting academia

How do we ensure that European academia’s capacity to take scientific risks is better protected? Protecting science is not only about implementing rules, constraints and procedures to de-risk but also about embracing risk-taking. This could be achieved by better managing security risks in scientific research instead of de-risking. And for that we need to trust and protect scientists, their academic institutions and the procedures they have designed to ensure the quality, integrity and responsibility of research (such as peer review). We all agree that security risk control measures are needed, but managing security risks also needs to work with scientific procedures, not against them.

So how, in the context of the European Research Area Act’s interest in both research security and the protection of scientific freedom, can we shift away from de‑risking? How can we encourage national governments and international institutions to preserve and protect the risk appetite of their researchers, which is at the core of excellence in scientific research, while simultaneously managing security risks?

This will involve thinking about how to better protect individual scientists subject to attacks; how to ensure their physical safety when death threats are made; how to offer them legal protections as well as psychological support; and how to offer protection against inaccurate or dangerous media coverage, including on social media platforms.

And let’s think about a collective solidarity fund, at the European scale—insurance that could pay for legal fees to help individual researchers under attack. One of us, Laëtitia Atlani-Duault, proposed this a decade ago, while raising the alarm over increased legal attacks against scientists. In increasingly troubling times, now might be the moment to put it in place.

This article was originally published by Research Professional.