By Declan Fahy.
What happens when an organisation’s science communication becomes replaced by politically-motivated public deception?
Michel Claessens was in such a situation as part of his work as head of communication between April 2011 and March 2015 for the ITER project, a massive energy project located in the south of France.
At the facility, some 33 nations are collaborating to build a nuclear fusion device. It is one of the world’s largest scientific projects, but one, Claessens argues, that has a definite political dimension, including its promotion of nuclear power.
Claessens, who was also a former head of communication in the Directorate-General Research and Innovation of the European Commission, details in the May 2025 issue of Public Understanding of Science his concerns over hype, research integrity and the merging of science communication and marketing in publicly funded big science projects such as ITER.
He writes that during one period of its history “ITER management was certainly interested in promoting public acceptance of the ITER project (which is directly tied to acceptance of its public funding) but its actions demonstrated that it was less interested in promoting accurate public understanding of science”.
Those actions, he argues, included the public communication of “several pieces of information and claims that were unreliable and even scientifically unsound”.
To accompany his commentary article, the journal asked me to interview him about his experience at ITER, and its implications for science communication more widely.
Declan Fahy : Why do you think this case is important to highlight for science communication researchers and practitioners?
Michel Claessens : Because it shows, maybe in caricatural way, or in an extreme way, problems that exist almost everywhere in science communication. It shows what can happen when there are conflicts of interest, and organisations are full of conflicts of interest today, even academic institutions and research bodies. In all these public organisations, there is at some stage, at some level, strategic dimensions, managerial pressures, contextual interferences, and even political objectives that may create conflicts of interest that science communicators do not know necessarily, or are not aware of, often because they are not explicit. When science gets closer to politics – and science is almost always close to politics, if you look carefully – it can create problems, conflicts of interest, and divergence among people and management.
DF : What are those conflicts of interest in these organisations?
MC : As a science communicator, you would like to pursue an objective of informing the public, being explicit, transparent. But you can get involved in a conflict of interest and tensions if your boss is focusing on the schedule, the budget, and, in a way, the funders, and the government who are supporting the project. Thus, organisational interests may interfere with free and truthful public communication. Demands from the management will eventually involve a scope of very diverse motivations, ranging from good professional practices to willingness to control or “polish the truth,” and even censorship.
DF : Your commentary details incorrect statements and exaggerations around nuclear fusion as a technology. Why do you think such exaggerations and incorrect statements were made?
MC : My personal assessment or conclusion is that the top management wanted to promote actively the ITER project and nuclear fusion. That also meant not criticising the project, not highlighting uncertainties or open questions, etc. My view of communication on a high-tech project is quite the opposite. And when I have communicated with the public — because I have welcomed hundreds of visitors to the project — I always tried to be open. Because there are open questions, uncertainties and so many things we still don’t know, etc. People understand this. Even if they have no scientific background, they are not so naïve about science and technology. We should not forget about this.
DF : Do you think PR-based science communication can be entirely objective, as it were?
MC : Science communication is never 100% objective. Science communication is not a communication science. The best a science communicator can do is to reach out to non-scientific audiences while being 100% scientifically correct (at least with the science he or she is talking about and as it is now). In a comment published in 2010 , we insisted that science communication deals with the diffusion, propagation and appropriation of scientific knowledge in different contexts, for different purposes, with different effects (intended or unintended), and the paradigms employed qualify these processes. Therefore it cannot be objective. And science communicators deal most of the time with non-formal knowledge of scientific knowledge, such as representations, misinterpretations, misconceptions, preconceptions, everyday knowledge, or common sense knowledge.
DF : What are the lessons from your experience that can perhaps prevent such situations from happening again?
MC : I see three takeaways. The first one concerns the managers. You have to find good managers for publicly funded research projects. This looks trivial, but it is not. The boards of complex scientific projects may be tempted to recruit a scientist for the top management position. But he or she should have a track record in management and communication. We have many examples of scientists who failed to be good science ministers. Likewise, hiring a top scientist to lead a big science project may be a wrong choice. The problem at ITER was that until 2021, the top management wanted to show that the project had a strong momentum and achieved a number of key milestones. This led them to hide problems and fire employees who spoke openly and honestly of problems with the reactor and who veered from the official discourse. Fortunately, this situation is now over.
And I have been pleased to see the new ITER director-general, Pietro Barabaschi, who was appointed in September 2022, put emphasis on scientific integrity right from the beginning of his mandate: “We need to stop hiding problems to our stakeholders and to ourselves. The more you ‘decorate’ the truth, the harder it will eventually hit you back. In a first-of-a-kind project such as ITER, issues, challenges, setbacks and errors are to be expected. So let's get rid of whatever fear permeates reports and interactions; let's get rid of what is antagonistic in the ITER Project's present culture,” he said in one of his first interviews. I cannot agree more. I often say that we have to ‘educate’ our decision-makers and politicians.
A second takeaway is that the number of conflicts of interest can only increase since science communication today is never far from public relations, marketing, lobbying and even politics in scientific organisations and public research projects. Some managers use science communication tools to pass on political messages and justify management decisions. Communicating scientific results may lead to requests for editorial adaptations and even to censorship. Therefore, there is clearly a need to enforce professional – not just scientific – integrity in employee contracts, staff regulations and codes of conduct.
And a third takeaway is that whistleblowers need to be protected. This is now the case in Europe as there is an EU directive on whistleblower which says for example: “Whistleblowers are, in particular, important sources for investigative journalists. Providing effective protection to whistleblowers from retaliation increases legal certainty for potential whistleblowers and thereby encourages whistleblowing also through the media. In this respect, protection of whistleblowers as journalistic sources is crucial for safeguarding the ‘watchdog’ role of investigative journalism in democratic societies.”
I never thought I would one day become a kind of whistleblower. But my life drastically changed in 2021. First because I decided to retire and go back with my family to live in Provence, close to ITER, where we have a house. And then, because when my colleagues got to learn that I was back in the region, many gave me a call or invited me for a drink or lunch, etc.
Many talked about the difficult working atmosphere at ITER, with omnipresent fear, unlawful contract terminations, data manipulations, wrong decisions, etc. But they all asked to remain anonymous for fear of reprisals.
My first reaction was to doublecheck the information I got from the colleagues. Then I asked my wife: “What do I do now?” Of course, I could simply close the file since it was no longer my job. Or I could draft a report, at least to inform the ITER Council and the EU institutions and perhaps go public. But, as I said to my wife: “If I do this I take a big risk as there could be reprisals from my former employers.” My wife said: “Michel, do it for our children and the young people. You should not remain silent.” So, I decided to whistleblowing at the end of 2021.
Today, I can say that I didn’t suffer any retaliation after my whistleblower activities. On the contrary, I received support from all my colleagues (as, they argue, I was saying out loud what everyone knew – but that no one dared to say) and even from the current ITER top management.
Despite his difficult experiences, Claessens still believes in the ITER project and its possibilities for human progress. As he writes at the end of his commentary article, having more than 30 countries working together on an energy project that has the potential to change our civilization “sends a strong message of hope and optimism to the world”.
Read the journal article here: From science communication to systemic public deception: The case of the ITER big science project
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Declan Fahy