16
BAMOS
Jun 2020
The Australian Context
The growing presence of arms manufacturers like Lockheed
Martin in Australian science reflects the US‐Australia
International Multidisciplinary University Research Initiative
(AUSMURI), a joint effort of the Australian Department of
Defence and the US Department of Defence to fund research
projects relevant to Australia's military priorities. These priorities
include the goal of expanding Australia's arms export industry
to one of the world’s top ten.
In August 2016, the University of Melbourne announced
the establishment of the "STELaRLab" research centre, a
collaborative project with Lockheed, which in 2018 was
expanded to the University of Adelaide. At both institutions, the
STELaRLab directly finance research programs, honours and PhD
scholarships, and post‐doctoral research positions. Lockheed's
presence also extends to many other Universities across
Australia: for instance, the company’s 2019 agreement with the
University of Newcastle formalises Lockheed’s involvement in
designing the undergraduate aerospace curriculum.
Lockheed also finance STEM outreach programs for Australian
high school students. The company are key sponsors for the
Queensland University of Technology's Unmanned Aerial
Vehicle (UAV) Challenge, a program intended to excite high
school and undergraduate students about STEM. Since 2015
Lockheed have been the major financers of the National Youth
Science Forum (NYSF), a summer school that encourages Year
11 students to consider STEM careers.
The company’s website states that their STEM outreach aims
to "strengthen the workforce pipeline" and the STELaRLab
promotional video shows the NYSF students attending a
Lockheed information seminar. Addressing obvious concerns,
the NYSF director Damien Pierce commented "If their
[Lockheed’s] expectation was they wanted everyone to go
directly into defence science and build bombs well that's
not palatable, but when they're interested in the pipeline of
their company and their company is not just defence… that's
appropriate."
While Lockheed are indeed involved in sectors other than
defence, students must understand the primary ways the
company’s research is monetised. Lockheed's latest annual
report indicates that 60% of their 53.8 billion USD of sales
in 2018 were to the US Department of Defence, and 27%
were for F‐35 fighter jets alone. Furthermore, the Stockholm
International Peace Research Institute estimates that after
including exports, 47.3 billion USD, or about 88%, of Lockheed's
2018 sales were of arms, with the company selling more arms
than their competitors every year since 2009. Arms sales
therefore comprise Lockheed’s core business, which may not
be obvious to students.
I worry whether Australian STEM students are sufficiently
prepared to assess these opportunities for themselves on ethical
grounds, particularly at the high school level. Furthermore, I
believe we must ensure members of our own community have
the necessary knowledge to assess potential reputational risks
when engaging with companies like Lockheed, and to reach
their own informed judgements about the ethical trade‐offs
between advancing science, and social licensing.
Science and Ethics
My experiences as a science student across three Australian
universities lead me to believe that many STEM students,
myself included, are unprepared to reflect on or discuss the
ethics of science’s role in complex issues. The consequences
could be serious. There are numerous historical and recent
examples of scientific work that are now almost universally
regarded as profoundly unethical, with many examples drawn
from situations where scientists work closely with military
or intelligence institutions. “Operation Popeye” provides an
example from our own field.
Many factors make it hard for scientists to openly discuss the
ethics surrounding complex issues. Because scientists trade
in objective knowledge, but objectivity in ethics is difficult,
some may worry that open discussion will lead others to view
them as non‐objective. Others may worry that overt moralising