The University of Sydney paid a for-profit company it part-owns to provide a mental health app to staff and students while using their de-identified data for research, a move the tertiary union has described as a “violation of the university’s relationship with its students”.
The Innowell mental health app was developed by the company Innowell Pty Ltd, whose major shareholders are the University of Sydney (32%) and consultancy firm PwC (45%). University of Sydney professors Ian Hickie and Jane Burns are also minor shareholders.
Leaked emails seen by Guardian Australia show the vice chancellor, Mark Scott, did not initially disclose the financial interests when introducing staff to the app and encouraging them to use it, although he did acknowledge it was developed by university’s Brain and Mind Centre and that participation was voluntary.
Separate emails show university management encouraged medical school staff to actively “promote” the app to their professional connections and students by email, newsletters and at team meetings.
Earlier this week, Guardian Australia reported the federal government gave Innowell Pty Ltd $33m in a non-contested grant in 2017 to develop the Innowell app. The Labor senator Deborah O’Neill, who is leading a parliamentary inquiry into consultants, is now demanding more transparency about the grant and raising probity concerns.
The Innowell app was rolled out to University of Sydney students and staff in 2021, when the university was a 45% shareholder in the company. A page on the university’s website with information about the Innowell app for current students does not state that the university and PwC are major Innowell Pty Ltd shareholders.
When asked if the university paid to procure the app, a spokeswoman said “there was a fee involved”. The value of the contract is “commercial in confidence”, she said.
“The initial proposal to offer Innowell to our staff and students was part of a suite of health and wellbeing interventions that were rolled out in September 2021 in response to increased mental health challenges associated with Covid-19,” she said.
“Innowell was procured as a pilot on an initial 12-month contract, provided on a free and voluntary basis to students in May 2022 and staff in July 2022. In early 2023, the university agreed to extend the pilot for a further year.”
She said Innowell is free for staff and students and no government funds were used to provide it to the university community, “and there was never any suggestion or intention staff or students would be required to pay”.
“Data collected is de-identified to monitor usage of content and resources,” she said. “Both Innowell and the university have privacy policies in place that govern the collection, use and disclosure of personal information.”
The university webpage states Innowell will not share any personal or health information with the university, but makes it clear that if users consent, de-identified personal information may be shared with the company’s study partners.
The spokeswoman confirmed study partners include the university.
“De-identified and aggregated data is available for use by the university to assess usage rates and the efficiency of the platform, which is being piloted,” she said.
Guardian Australia previously reported that despite being awarded significant government funding, there are concerns there is no strong evidence to support the app and that the funding has not been of value to taxpayers – a claim the company and Hickie reject.
Psychiatrist Dr Jon Jureidini, an ethics in mental health researcher with the University of Adelaide, said the university’s “choice to use a tool that hasn’t been validated – or at least for which validation hasn’t been made public – raises concern that students are being exploited to further the development and profile of the profit making tool”.
The National Tertiary Education Union’s (NTEU) University of Sydney branch president, Dr Nick Riemer, said: “This is a serious violation of the university’s relationship with its students.
“Management must come clean about exactly what’s gone on here.
“The Innowell page on the university’s website should clearly disclose Sydney Uni’s financial interest in the company.”
The NTEU national president, Dr Alison Barnes, said: “There’s just so much we don’t know about universities’ relationships with consultants like PwC, and that should be a massive concern for the whole community.
“The lack of accountability is staggering given we’re talking about publicly funded universities.
“Issues like these show just how urgently the federal government needs to tackle poor governance, which was highlighted as a top priority of the Universities Accord interim report.”
