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CRACE: Free and fair 

There's been plenty of hand-wringing and heart-bleeding, but up till now precious little action. So Richard Smith's recent resignation from his post as professor of medical journalism at Nottingham University in protest at the institution's links with British American Tobacco came as a rare and welcome example of someone putting his money where his mouth was - and taking a principled stand on the ethics of academic responsibility.

Except there was no money involved, as Smith's post was both part-time and unpaid. Which perhaps made his decision to leave a trifle easier; it has one wondering how many other academics would have loved to follow suit but, with families and mortgages to support, were left to choke on BAT's filtered largesse.

Big business and universities are a done deal. Scarcely a week goes by without some university announcing the creation of a new sponsored chair

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