Why do we need maverick academics?

Competition Lore Podcast

Academics are making an important contribution to current debates regarding the policies and laws that govern competition in the digital era. Independence and objectivity in academic research are crucial to the value and impact of that contribution.

In this second episode in our mini-series on Academics and Big Tech, you’ll hear from Professor Ioannis Lianos of University College London on why he considers there to be serious risks to the integrity of academic research as a result of undisclosed funding by large tech companies.

The episode is a sequel to episode 13 in which Professor Daniel Sokol gave us a quite different perspective on these issues. However, this episode goes further, to explore why and how the playing field for research funding could and should be made more level and the importance of fairness in funding to allow for research that pushes the boundaries and tests the status quo.

You will find the Academic Society for Competition Law’s Declaration of Ethics referred to in the episode here and you can read about Ioannis’s efforts to promote greater disclosure of corporate funding for academic research here.

If you would like to read Ioannis’s latest thinking on how mainstream doctrines in competition law should be challenged, I highly recommend this paper:

The Poverty of Competition Law, 2018.

Featuring regular cut-through interviews with leading thinkers, movers and shakers, Competition Lore is a podcast series that engages us all in a debate about the transformative potential and risks of digitalised competition.

Join Caron Beaton-Wells, Professor in Competition Law at the University of Melbourne, to tackle what it means to participate as a competitor, consumer or citizen in a digital economy and society.

Competition Lore is produced by Written & Recorded.

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