Tuesday, December 5, 2017

Canadian Think Tanks Get Poor Marks for Transparency



Pro-transparency advocate Transparify has just released a new study showing that Canadian think tanks lag behind their US and UK brethren when it comes to funding transparency.

The group rated 14 Canadian think tanks on their levels of online disclosure related to funding, finding that only half of the policy research and advocacy organizations rated are broadly or highly transparent.

Four think tanks (and related organizations), including Centre for International Governance Innovation (CIGI) and International Institute for Sustainable Development, received a top rating of five-starts for being "highly transparent."

Meanwhile, four think tanks were considered "highly opaque" in terms of transparency, including the Fraser Institute, Conference Board of Canada, Montreal Economic Institute, and Pembina Institute.

Here is a Globe and Mail piece on the new report (subscription needed).

The full Transparify report can be found here.  A 2017 Transparify report on UK think tank funding can be found here.  And here is the group's 2016 survey of 200 think tanks in 47 countries.

Transparify was originally funded by George Soros' Open Society Foundations but no longer receives funding from that group.