What science should learn from the Epstein files

The latest release of files relating to Jeffrey Epstein includes yet more examples of how entwined the financier and child sex offender was with the scientific establishment. No doubt the scientists who feature in the newly released documents, including several chemists, will come under scrutiny now—though having your name in the files is hardly conclusive evidence of any guilt.

Researchers can’t be blamed for writing to Epstein, at least before his 2008 conviction. But Epstein continued to donate money and cultivate networks of power and influence up to his 2019 arrest and death.

Let’s be clear: Epstein’s crimes were reprehensible. His influence on the world of science was also corrosive. But the case lays bare the realities of power and patronage that have been true for centuries.

The bracing reality of the need for funding means that many will take the money where they can, particularly if the money comes with few conditions. Also while very few philanthropists are Epstein, there are always trade-offs.

It is impossible for a researcher requesting funding to be held responsible for the actions of a benefactor. Nonetheless, if we are judged by the company we keep, the same may be true of the money that we receive.

In their defense, many researchers would argue that the biases or proclivities of their funders do not influence their work, but that can be a hard claim to prove. Cultivating personal relationships can be a sensible tactic, especially with individual philanthropists. And a researcher’ s capacity to conduct thorough due diligence on high-net-worth people with complicated estates and distributed personal networks will have its limits.

One way to protect researchers from the undue influence of tainted money has often been a substantial supply of public funds. While government funding agencies have their own priorities and focuses, the nature of public funding can mitigate researchers’ exposing themselves to more questionable funding sources. It also suggests more openness, and transparency can help remove even the suggestion of undue influence.

But it would be naive to think all research funds could or should be public money. Or that a government is not capable of crimes.

The real need is to seek a balance in the way we scrutinize ethical practice in research funding. Typically, funders are expected to interrogate researchers’ methods to ensure that those conducting the research uphold certain standards. Dozens of frameworks support this kind of assessment. What you will struggle to find is anything for a researcher to ensure that they protect themselves and their work from unethical behavior by a funder.

Perhaps it is time that we have a statement of principles that funders should be expected to sign on to and that researchers could use as a de facto checklist for acceptable interest before agreeing to grants. Such statements, or frameworks, should be straightforward and inclusive enough to be broadly applied to different philanthropists and yet honorific enough to encourage uptake.

We would like to suggest three principles as a starting point: First, that the funder recognizes that the researcher and their work is under no obligation to endorse the politics or personal manifesto of a funder. Second, that there is an explicit encouragement to acknowledge fair labor practices as consistent with a body such as the International Labour Organization. Finally, that the researcher is expected to comply with calls for fiscal transparency. We might even consider making explicit the right for researchers to terminate their relationship without consequence should the funder have a criminal conviction.

This is not about determining if a philanthropist is a good person or not; it is not even about determining if the money is “good money.” Like the statements of ethical practice that researchers typically sign to receive money, such a statement serves the purpose of educating the parties of expectations.

This is certainly not the perfect solution, but it is a conversation we need to have more of. And it is better to light a candle than sit in a dark, disused lab for fear of opprobrium.

This editorial is the result of collective deliberation in C&EN. For this editorial, the lead contributor is Nick Ishmael-Perkins.

Views expressed are not necessarily those of ACS.