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Justice / Physical & Biological Sciences

Ross McKenzie

Professor of Physics, University of Queensland

I agree with the paper. On just relations being “pervasively violated” in the university:

1. I find it quite disturbing the way universities (and some of my colleagues) exploit international students, postdocs, and visiting scholars. Some labs are like ``sweat shops’’. Adjunct faculty is another issue…
    
2. Research priorities are skewed. Here is a good example of medical research. From the abstract: “Most studies on global health inequality consider unequal health care and socio-economic conditions but neglect inequality in the production of health knowledge relevant to addressing disease burden. . . . Accordingly, conditions common to developed countries garnered more clinical research than those common to less developed countries. Many of the health needs in less developed countries do not attract attention among developed country researchers who produce the vast majority of global health knowledge—including clinical trials—in response to their own local needs.”

Citation: Evans JA, Shim J-M, Ioannidis JPA (2014) Attention to Local Health Burden and the Global Disparity of Health Research. PLoS ONE 9(4): e90147.doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0090147