Defending Science: Does Employment Come with a Muzzle?
I gave a presentation on the Dutch peat reduction plan. One paragraph in the agreement struck me as scientifically questionable, but I’m neither a climate scientist nor a horticultural expert. So, before the presentation, I asked the scientist Wim (name changed) for his opinion on this paragraph. He works for a contract research organization that primarily receives contracts from industry. His answer was evasive. Minutes before my presentation, I was able to ask him the same question again privately. This put Wim in the comfortable position of not leaving any written record, but the time pressure brought out his most authentic side. His statement was unequivocal: “Absolute nonsense.”
This series examines whether and how scientifically trained individuals can participate in public debates, and how employment influences these efforts.
Sometimes our employer asks us to give presentations on their behalf. Our role in this is clear. But can we, as employees, also set our own topics? First, let’s consider cases in which our interests are similar to, or at least don’t contradict, those of the employer. In the second section, we analyze more complex cases with differing interests.
Your Employer on Your Side
I usually find company presentations boring. Why is that? Employees who give such presentations often do so as a secondary task. Furthermore, the communications department demands confidentiality and adherence to formatting, making it tempting to simply recite an approved, and therefore generic, set of slides instead of truly engaging with the audience. This isn’t the only solution. There are more ways to truly connect with your audience.
If you discuss your presentation early on with your superiors or the communications department, you might discover that the objective is open-ended: “Present the company in a positive light, for example, to doctoral candidates who are applying to work for us.” This gives you considerable freedom to address topics in a way that is most relevant to the target audience. The best way to do this is with a concrete example that is less sensitive due to confidentiality requirements. Such a concrete example is more relatable and easier to understand than more general statements or principles.
I vividly remember a presentation by a chemist from the pharmaceutical industry. He presented 30 years of development work on malaria vaccines, which were cross-financed by blockbuster drugs. The company knew that malaria vaccines were hardly profitable due to public pressure to sell them cheaply. With this example, he was able to demonstrate that pharmaceutical companies can not only tackle lucrative diseases of affluence but also create social value. Simply reciting the platitudes of the Corporate Social Responsibility agenda would hardly have had the same effect.
When Your Values Don’t Match Your Employer
When job hunting, you should consider the alignment of your values with your employer as a selection criterion. If they don’t match, you can change jobs. Sometimes, however, the difference in values is too minor, or the move hasn’t yet been completed. What options do you have in such cases? We’ll start with the drastic cases we know from the press and move on to less stressful and more subtle tactics.
If your employer is doing something illegal, you can act as a whistleblower. This is a situation in which you should seek advice from authorities and lawyers beforehand to ensure you can weather it professionally, financially, and psychologically. In this article, however, we only want to touch on such extreme cases: firstly, because we would be exaggerating the worst-case scenario, and secondly, because it’s beyond our expertise.
You can speak up if something bothers you. You should distinguish between acting as a private individual and as a representative of the employer. As a private individual, you can support your arguments with non-confidential information. If, on the other hand, you are acting as an employee, your options are considerably more limited. As a guideline, you can ask yourself whether your statements can initiate positive change, either for the other person or for yourself. For example, lamenting dependence on raw material imports from dictatorships is pointless unless you offer alternative courses of action. If you do manage to do this, however, you will ideally be perceived not as a troublemaker, but as a strategic thinker.
In some cases, you can feed information into other channels. Years after the presentation we mentioned at the beginning, we received a message from Wim. The industry lobby had drafted a position paper demanding an expansion of peat extraction licenses. In his message, he asked us whether we perceived this position paper as a two-pronged tactic. With his question, he drew our attention to the ambivalent nature of this lobbying. He thus planted the seed of an idea that we could pursue further.
Finally, let’s look at the most subtle tactics, employed quietly, anonymously, or under the guise of friendliness. I learned through an article in The Economist that my then-employer had relocated its headquarters from France to Luxembourg. The article argued, using this example of a dynamic company, that France had become unattractive as a business location. However, the article also indirectly alerted me to my employer’s tax avoidance practices. To share this information with my colleagues, I informed the communications department about the article so they could include it in the company newsletter. The bait—the positive portrayal of the company in such a prestigious magazine—was thus laced with the tax avoidance hook.
The fact that you are an employee should not prevent you from engaging with socially relevant issues.
This article is the seventh in a series and examines the role of science in society in broad terms. We will address the tools available to scientists who communicate effectively and make a positive contribution to our society, as well as the potential pitfalls.
This article was first published in Nachrichten aus der Chemie (issue 07-2026). See here the German original.
If you´re interested in learning more about how to act in a professional role, you might be interested in our workshop Goodbye academia? It has been a pleasure.