'ARIA will give tremendous power to those who sit inside its black box, making decisions about whom & what to fund. If ARIA succeeds...it must not do so behind closed doors.' Editorial in @Nature as ARIA Bill passes, unamended through Parliament. nature.com/articles/d4158…
Good to see a nod here to last week’s @FoundSciTech debate, where I raised this issue with @uksciencechief, as part of a broader shift towards securitisation & secrecy in UK public research funding. foundation.org.uk/Events/2022/Ho…
But depressing & concerning that despite widespread pushback on this issue, within & beyond Parliament, the ARIA Bill has passed, unamended, without any improvements to its centralised & unaccountable governance model. hansard.parliament.uk/Commons/2022-0… 
Science minister @GeorgeFreemanMP insults both our & his own intelligence by repeating the claim that ARIA’s “small staff need to be sure that they will not be tied up answering 101—often spurious—FoI requests.”
For a start, FoI rules already allow organisations to refuse “vexatious” requests or those which are too expensive or time consuming to fulfil. cfoi.org.uk/wp-content/upl…
But far more important here are fundamental principles of openness, transparency & accountability in the public research funding system (which as minister @GeorgeFreemanMP should fight to protect & uphold).
Here’s @OttolineLeyser @UKRI_CEO making an eloquent defence of these principles to the ARIA Bill committee back in April 2021. hansard.parliament.uk/commons/2021-0…
As an ~£8bn turnover public body, @UKRI_News gets around 30 FoI requests per month. Perhaps @GeorgeFreemanMP could explain if that’s also too many, & what level of transparency & scrutiny he considers appropriate within an overall ~£20bn public research funding system?
More here from @CampaignFoI on the spurious arguments being deployed by government in support of what remains, as @Nature argues today, an indefensible position cfoi.org.uk/2021/06/campai… @EhsanMasood @Magda_Skipper
Far from reducing levels of legitimate public, journalistic & research community interest in the secretive processes of this new agency, these exemptions merely serve to heighten these—& undermine trust & confidence in the integrity & fairness of its decision-making.
Particularly at a time like this, when there’s been a succession of high-profile scandals over dodgy procurement processes, fraud & other flavours of corruption & nepotism in & around government. amp.theguardian.com/politics/2021/…
I know there are many across the UK research community who share these concerns. So in the absence of any response from government—and as the ARIA Bill now awaits Royal Assent—a few of us have teamed up to launch @ariawatch
We will support, amplify & encourage all efforts to make the UK’s newest research funding agency transparent, open & accountable. Contact us at hello@ariawatch.org if you want to get involved. More details soon… @ResFortnight @jgro_the @Stephen_Curry @EhsanMasood
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