SNS Managing Director Anders Vredin Resigns

Today, the board of the Centre for Business and Policy Studies (SNS) announced that they have agreed with managing director Anders Vredin that he will resign his post as soon as a suitable replacement is found, and that the search for such a replacement is to start immediately. Media reports can be found here, here, here, here, here. Effectively this means that Vredin has been sacked.

Given the events of the last week or so, this development is expected. The affair, as well as my posts on the issue, started when Vredin issued a gag order for the (now former) SNS head of research, Laura Hartman when she wanted to respond to criticism of a report pointing to the weak empirical evidence for repeated claims that a long trend of privatisation of Swedish public services improves effectiveness, which led Hartman to resign. After that followed a storm of criticism of Vredin, further resignations and threats of such from all parts of the SNS leadership and scientific advisors. Vredin did a weak attempt to roll over publicly, but instead exposed himself as harbouring exactly the sort of lack of support of academic freedom and research integrity that critics acused him of having acted out of. The Swedish academic community in general has also reacted strongly against Vredin's actions. My posts on this process can be found here, here and here.

The decision of the board today was simply the only one they could make, lest SNS would very quickly have been history. It remains to be seen, however, if trust and confidence in SNS research can be rebuilt. At least for me, it will take quite a while of unquestionable behaviour before I can start to feel reasonably certain about results and reports coming out of SNS not being screened, edited and censored on other grounds than purely scientific ones. One thing one would like to see in that process is that SNS research is more systematically being exposed to critical scrutiny of the international scientific community, thus not primarily publishing reports in Swedish only, but base these on peer reviewed articles in established research journals.

Seven Members of the SNS Board of Trustees Demand the Resignation of Managing Director, Anders Vredin

The sad circus of the inability of the leadership and management of the Centre for Business and Policy Studies (SNS) to stand up for elementary standards of scientific freedom and integrity against vested interests continues. My former posts on this affair are here and here.

Today, seven members of the SNS Board of Trustees – attached, among other things, to ensure that not even the proverbial wife of Caesar is suspected of things like the ones revealed in this affair – publish an article in my country's leading daily. They recount in astute terms the core of what this business is about, the faults committed, what is at stake for SNS and conclude by, in so many words, demanding the more or less immediate resignation of managing director Anders Vredin. Yesterday, Vredin made a sad attempt to put the toothpaste back into the tube, but as I described in my post on that, when reading what he actually says in that statement, it rather conveys the impression of a person that, albeit flagging academic credentials, a long time ago lost his moral compass when it comes to basic values of the research and scientific community.

The SNS board of trustees, it may be added, is no light collection of people. It hosts leading and very well-respected scholars and researchers in the academic fields often figuring in the projects of SNS, such as political economy and history of ideas – several of which are held in high regard, not least for their demonstrated high standards of integrity in relation to business and political interests.

SNS Director Pathetically Attempting to Roll Over on the Silencing of Controversial Research After Harsh Criticism from Scientific Advisory Board

Over just a few days, the sad affair of the Swedish private enterprise run thinktank-wanting-to-be seen-as-a-serious-research-institution Centre for Business and Policy Studies (SNS) that I posted about just the other day has taken another turn. First, yesterday, the scientific reference group that critically assessed the report of Laura Hartman issued a statement of which it is worth quoting a tasty chunk (in my translation):

 ...It is remarkable that such ambitious societal reforms have been undertaken without a simultaneous development of systems to monitor and evaluate the results of making the production of certain public services occur in a context of market competition. It is a considerable merit of the SNS-report is that it pinpoints these failures in the oversight and systematic evaluation of producers, private as well as public ones.

Then, today, the scientific advisory board of SNS released an unanimous statement harshly recounting the serious faults committed by the SNS management in this affair and demanding that the SNS direction and board immediately take action of three sorts: (1) to issue a statement where they, without qualification, express their support of scientific freedom, (2) express serious and honest regret over the faults committed in the handling of the case in question, and (3) openly commit themselves to promptly develop and make public a transparent and clear policy for to the effect that similar faults are prevented in the future. Of course, the underlying message is, "or we resign our posts", and that would indeed be the irreversible end of SNS.

The same day – today – the managing director of SNS, Anders Vredin, issued a public statement with the headline "I Acted Wrongly" – reported also here, here, here, here, here, here, here). Presumably, this statement is the first step in an attempt to accommodate the demands of the scientific advisory board. However, this attempts not only comes too late to be credible, it reeks of insincerity and unwillingness to recognise what is at stake. The most astonishing formulation runs like this:

Intending to stimulate a broad discussion with no holes barred with regard to the important issues of fact and analyses of the report [...], I did not want to allow Laura Hartman to actively participate in the debate.

He then goes on, in the best spirit of a religious dogmatic leader to profess:

...the decision was based on my own conclusion that there were defects in the SNS-presentation of the report. Defects that I should have noticed much earlier. Thus, the responsibility is mine.

So, in short a broad and unprejudiced debate on a research suggestion is best accomplished by banning the maker of this suggestion to participate in the debate. And when a popular presentation of a research report is faulty, the best remedy is to stop the one actually knowing the content of the report best from voicing her opinion. And the best of all: Anders Vredin "concluded" that the report was defective before said debate had even been conducted.

My – humble – conclusion is this: the ball is now with the scientific advisory board. If SNS can display nothing better that Vredin's pathetic excuse for behaving like a bought and paid for pawn, the scientific advisory board must show its hand. For, in light of Vredin's more than lame response to its call, the question must now be asked where the loyalties of this board lie. Is it with the opportunity to be cuddled by vested interests displaying impressive funding muscles if only you don't rock the boat, or is it with real science and real research?

It's up to you to make the choice.

A Lysenko Affair in Private Enterprise Sponsored Research

Today, the social science research community of my country is shaken by a scandal of groundbreaking magnitude. The private enterprise sponsored research institute, Centre for Business and Policy Studies (SNS), just a few weeks ago made public the results of an impressive study of the outcome of the trend of privatisation of public services in Sweden that has been going on for over 20 years. Since SNS is often seen as an ideology-producer for the Swedish private enterprise community, it was both surprising and refreshing to read project leader Laura Hartman's impassionate summary of the study, the main result of which is that the privatisation trend can, in fact, not be shown to have lead to any gains in the effectiveness of public service (here, here). In particular, Hartman highlighted the lack of empirical support of the often mechanically repeated hypothesis that market competition in the realm of public services leads to increased effectiveness.

Not surprisingly, the results provoked debate. In fact, it seemed to create a virtual panic among the lovers of the idea of a sell-out of public services. The reason, of course, is that while the core fans of this idea support it either for libertarian reasons or for the self-interested hope of making a quick buck in the process themselves, the support of the general public of such reforms is heavily dependent on the perception of them as promoting the common good.The results are especially sensitive in view of the programme of the current Swedish right-wing government's open plans to continue and increase the pace of privatisations – repeatedly motivated by arguments in terms of making public services more effective. Nevertheless, on the SNS website, the results are clearly set out and a sketch of a continuation of the programme can be found (alas, only in Swedish).

Today, however, SNS announced that Harman's contract has been terminated "on her own request" to pursue research at the department of political economy at Uppsala University (to which she has been affiliated since before) (here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here to name just a few). In the political magazine, Arena, Hartman reveals what "her own request" stands for (my translation):

When I took the job at SNS, I had a clear view of how the research should be conducted and how the presentation of the results should be undertaken. I have now come to a point when I realise that my opportunities to do what I envision are better in the university sector. [...] I believed that I would have the opportunity to present and discuss my results. I was allowed to do that at the conference [where the report was presented] but not after that.

[Interviewer:] Was this a gag order being issued?

 I don't want to comment on that. It suffices to note that I experience my opportunities to conduct and discuss my research as better when done from Uppsala University.

Could anything said between the lines be more loud and clear? And as if that was not enough, just a few hours later, long-time associate and former Director of Research at SNS, Professor of Political Science Olof Peterson, announced on his blog that he immediately severs all connections to SNS. The given reason is that (in my translation):

Internal disagreements regarding the right of researchers of SNS to present the results of their research freely. [...] On my view, it should be self-evident that SNS does not restrict this freedom of SNS affiliated researchers. However, it has now come to light that the directorship of SNS have acted in a way that violates academic freedom. Therefore, I resign my position at SNS.

In sum: what we seem to be watching is a bona fide Lysenko affair, but now in the realms of private enterprise sponsored research, rather than the communist, plan-economical original. The only difference is that the uniform of Stalin has now been replaced by the double-breasted pinstripe suit of the business executive and his spin doctors in media and politics. Stalin so much wanted his impossible five-year plans for Soviet agriculture to be feasible that he sacked and destroyed the lives of any scientist questioning the thesis of Lysenko that crops could be made to acquire hereditary features such as resistance to cold by being exposed to environmental conditions such as low temperature (which, if true, could have made Siberia bloom). The SNS directorship and its sponsors so much wants the privatisation programme to be possible to sell to the voters without lying, that it issues a gag-order for any affiliated researcher undermining that scenario.

My own conclusion is this: First, private enterprise sponsored social science research is far, far, far more of a problematic entity than has previously been acknowledged. Second, SNS must either immediately roll over about five times on this issue, lest it loses all the credibility as a serious research institutions that it has worked hard for several decades to build. Third, to all international colleagues: next time you see a Swedish research result in social science or economy, better first check that it is not ordered, bought and paid for by SNS! Fourth, Laura Hartman and Olof Peterson deserve unlimited praise for their integrity and courage. Even if you are well-established, resigning your institutional affiliation is not a light thing in the world of academia. To Olof and Laura: You give me inspiration for and hope about doing the same, should I ever be unlucky enough to find myself in such bad company as you have been cursed with.

To SNS: We all see the nakedness now. Perhaps time to resign from the imperial throne and be more honest, don't you think? Looking forward to see the announcement of an imminent reorganisation into the Private Enterprise Bureau of Ideology and Propanganda. In Swedish, Studieförbundet Näringsliv och Ideologisk Propaganda (SNIPPA).