Submission to the Senate inquiry into the capacity of public universities to meet Australia’s higher education needs.

By

Andrew J. Hapel
6 Sullivan Crescent
Wanniassa, ACT 2903
e-mail ajhapel@ozemail.com.au
hapel@rsc.anu.edu.au
Phone 02 6125 8285 (BH)
FAX 02 6125 0750 (BH)

Personal background:  In June 2000 I accepted a voluntary redundancy package from my tenured position in the JCSMR.   The Director told me that action would be taken to force redundancy on me if I did not take this course of action. 

 In the five years prior to this decision I had been awarded two fellowships by the International Union against Cancer, and had established a commercial collaboration with Glaxo Wellcome that brought almost $800,000 into the School.  I was therefore surprised at the Director’s decision.

 I write to describe what happened as a result of my commercial agreement with Glaxo Wellcome.
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Diminishing levels of funding were a major incentive for me to try to obtain research monies from outside the ANU.  In general commercial collaborations can be managed such that all parties benefit.   The notion is that aspects of work being done in academe, but which might have commercial application, can be taken on by industry, while the underlying basic research is continued by the University Department.   Funding from industry normally comes in return for access to that basic research.    This is precisely the sort of arrangement that I negotiated with Glaxo Wellcome and which was approved both by John Richards, (the DVC) and Steve Redman (the Director of the JCSMR).  The agreement is administered by ANUTECH.

Co-incident with the Glaxo negotiations my laboratories were sabotaged.  This was through the addition of acid to almost every reagent bottle.   Apart from damage to my research, this irresponsible action introduced a very real chance of serious injury to any one handling material from the tampered bottles.   In addition some of the materials that were central to the Glaxo agreement went missing.

 There was a police investigation but this was hampered by the failure at some level of the administration to provide all of the available evidence to the police, including print outs of swipe card access records, the security log, video tapes from surveillance of my laboratories, and letters from one member of my group to the legal office and VC.   It is not possible for me to say to what extent this represented incompetence or deliberate strategy by the administration.   The then VC and the legal officer have since retired from their positions, and the management of JCSMR was then in a state of flux.

After a period of uncertainty a new Director was appointed.   Almost immediately an attempt was made to transfer parts of the Glaxo contract to another group.   This was initiated by a post-doctoral fellow, Dr. Banyer, in my group, and was supported by the Head of the Division, Prof. Parish, by the head of the other group Prof. Ramshaw, and by the Director, Prof. Whitworth.   

Associated with this proposed move was a series of events that indicated that a determined attempt was being made to plagiarise the entire project area that was being funded by Glaxo.

I made a formal complaint to those members of the University designated to receive complaints of academic misconduct.   As a result of their prima facei assessment and report (which has not been released) the matter was referred for investigation to Prof. Begley at The Western Australian Institute for Medical Research.  The result was a report that suggested that two members of the Viral Engineering and Cytokines Group (Dr. Banyer and her husband, Dr. Thomson) be counseled for “Acting in a manner that could be perceived as constituting ‘practices that seriously deviate from those commonly accepted within the research community for proposing, conducting or reporting research.’”   This was the extent of their ‘punishment’.

In the meantime I had been made redundant. 

 As far as I am aware, those responsible for the sabotage, thefts and attempted plagiarism are still employed at JCSMR.  Given the most charitable interpretation it is clear that various other aspects of the case have been whitewashed.   

Prof. Parish, who vigorously supported the Viral Engineering group in general and Dr. Banyer in particular, is a significant beneficiary from BIOTRON.   This company shamelessly used the reputation of the ANU to enhance its recent share float and worse, used the WEB pages of the ANU to make the false claim that one of one of its products prevented the growth of the AIDS virus and hence prevented development of disease.

In my opinion this is a stunning example of a senior administrator protecting scurrilous conduct with one hand, while participating in a very dubious exercise with the other.   

Glaxo Wellcome conducted an informal investigation and as result of that agreed to continue funding me through the contract with ANUTECH.   I was able to rent space in the Research School of Chemistry where I now work.  The project, however, was seriously hindered, perhaps mortally wounded by what had happened, and I had lost my tenured position at ANU.    It is only now that I am recovering from the emotional damage that was done during the period of sabotage and related events.

I do not see how the JCSMR benefited from my redundancy, causing as it did considerable inconvenience to Glaxo Wellcome, and damaging the School’s as well as my own reputation. 

Three different groups in JCSMR wish to continue to work in collaboration with me on various aspects of the project.   Given this, and the funding from Glaxo, and the UICC fellowships, it is difficult to see how the Director of JCSMR could justify my redundancy.     I do not see what cause was served by removing me (and my funding) from the School, except that I obviously had enemies who were satisfied by this outcome.  Ultimately the decision was the Director’s alone.

It is easy to imagine how a hostile administration can set the stage for the sort of events that occurred.   The presumption of those who committed sabotage and theft, correct as it turned out, was that they would be protected even if they used such extreme measures to damage my research and my career.  With a little luck they might have succeeded in stealing the entire system and gaining access to the funding that Glaxo had provided.   Since the system I developed technically belongs to ANU it is not inconceivable that other attempts will be made to take over the research.

What I experienced at JCSMR was the complete disintegration of proper scientific conduct.  

What has this to do with the Senate Committee and its deliberations?   What I have described suggests that the lure of commercial dollars was sufficient to corrupt junior members of JCSMR to the point where they would do literally anything to gain control of the funding and the project that generated it.  With ineffective intervention by the administration the affair spiraled to the point where I was afraid that there may be attempts to effect more serious damage than by sabotage.

 The affair showed that there is a severe problem in the administration of JCSMR.   This seems to be primarily at the level of those offering advice to the Director, though I reiterate that the final decisions remain in the hands of the Director.   

What can be done to improve matters?

My own view is that, sadly, the JCSMR has outlived its usefulness as it now struggles to match the performance of other medical research institutes in Australia.

It may be a better option to scrap the research school and establish a medical school (with a research arm funded entirely through the NHMRC and other outside agencies). 

 This is something that would benefit the ACT community, could be funded and run by ANU using the recurrent funds that presently go to the research school, with some spin offs for the University of Canberra.

This is an idea that I believe has a large degree of merit and which I am prepared to enlarge on.

Exhaustive documentation of everything that I have claimed in this submission is available on request.