Graduate Students’ Union (GSU) President Gisèle Scanlon has blocked the TCD PhD Workers’ Rights Group from releasing the results of a survey about the difficulties faced by Trinity’s PhD students.
Though the GSU had previously agreed that the group could publish findings from the survey, Scanlon has since imposed a series of conditions on their release, demanding that both parties settle on “mutually agreeable” messaging.
The survey, designed by the rights group and distributed by the GSU, asked PhD students – a cohort that has long faced tough working conditions and mental health issues – about how the coronavirus pandemic had impacted their work, with the hope of minimising the disruption to research and aiding the students’ health and wellbeing.
Since being designed in May, the survey has faced a months-long delay in its distribution, carried out by the GSU. The survey was meant to end on September 22th, but was live until early October.
Since then, Scanlon has frozen the group out of the survey they had worked on collaboratively for half a year, blocking the group from publishing the results of the survey.
The two parties had originally agreed that the group would be permitted to release an infographic of the survey’s findings.
The survey asked respondents a range of questions, such as whether their research had been negatively affected by the pandemic, and how their mental health has changed since the onset of coronavirus restrictions.
Scanlon has since imposed several conditions as part of a data sharing agreement that the rights group must sign prior to being granted permission to use the data.
The agreement states that the group can only share the information if the messaging about the findings is “mutually agreeable”. The report must also be reviewed by the GSU “to offer appropriate authorizations to share participants data where such participants are represented by the TCDGSU”.
Scanlon has also stated that she will not allow the group to take credit for the survey, despite the fact that it designed and plans to write the report for the survey.
According to the group, Scanlon said that “the TCDGSU are not willing to share the survey report publicly with [TCD PhD Workers’ Rights Group] credited alongside the TCDGSU”, adding that the GSU would not “be using or sharing logos” of the group on the survey report. This is despite the fact that the group is expected to write the report once the results of the survey are released.
When these quotes were put to Scanlon, she said that they were from a confidential email thread and that Trinity’s data protection officer “shall have to be notified now about this”.
“To protect your newspaper maybe ask him about all of this”, she told The University Times.
Primarily because of the restrictive nature of the agreement, which hands control of the survey over to the GSU, the rights group is refusing to accept the conditions.
Scanlon also refused to share the login credentials of the survey results to GSU Research Officer Serena Foo, a decision Foo described as “strange”.
The original survey shown to participants explicitly stated that none of their personal information would be gathered and that the results would be published in an infographic.
However, a number of the bullet points in the agreement that the GSU is asking the rights group to sign indicate that participants are known to the union.
Scanlon has since confirmed that participants were not required to provide their name or email address in order to fill out the survey. However, several of the questions, particularly those pertaining to mental and physical health, involved the collection of sensitive personal data.
Scanlon decided to approach the College solicitor and data protection officer for advice on disseminating the information, a move she described as “wise”. She did not feed their findings back to the rights group.
In a statement, Scanlon said that as the GSU is “the data controller who has access to the postgraduate community”, and is “very cognisant of our responsibility to students in the appropriate processing of their data”.
The report, she said, has to be “jointly agreed when the GSU is satisfied as data controllers that the data is being used in a way that reflects the consent given by each student who participated”.
“Surveys of this magnitude can’t be carried out in College nor data released without the involvement of the Data Protection Officer and the College solicitor and a data can’t be released without a data sharing agreement. It’s Trinity College protocol for the Unions”, she also said.
Scanlon said: “Data has to be processed according to data processing guidelines and we’re the collectors and processors so we have to adhere to DPO Guidelines as set out in the data sharing agreement.”
Speaking to The University Times, Thomas Dineen, chair of the Trinity PhD Workers’ Rights Group, said that PhD students had participated in the survey “with the hope that their results would go on to inform college measures, and also highlight the issues that they’re facing”.
“A lot of PhDs are really struggling during COVID-19, and they were really struggling during the first lockdown, when a lot of things were up in the air, and they didn’t have clarification about a lot of things. So really, they’re the ones who are really let down by this.”
“It’s the PhDs that have really taken the biggest hit here”, he added.
The rights group was set up over a year ago to combat the litany of issues PhD students currently face, from overcrowded study spaces to meagre stipends. The GSU has collaborated with the group since then, passing a mandate to support the group’s campaign.
During her campaign to become president of the GSU, Scanlon placed a lot of importance on welfare issues, putting her “I CARE” mantra at the centre of her campaign.
In the first presidential hustings, Scanlon said she had a desire to create a “caring, listening and aggressive union”. She promised to continue to work with PhD students’ rights to fair pay, mental health supports and safe working conditions.
