Strings Tied to Industry-Academic Collaborations at "Big Oil U"

American universities may be jeopardizing their academic integrity by giving oil, gas, and other polluting industries unprecedented influence over the research those companies fund on campus, according to a report released yesterday by the Center for Science in the Public Interest.

A CSPI survey of nine schools with industry-funded research programs aimed at studying and abating global warming found six of nine let corporate executives sit on boards overseeing grants; five of nine gave companies first rights to intellectual property; and five of nine let companies review and possibly delay publication of studies. The report revealed that industry investment in energy research plunged over the past several decades, and that the university-based programs fall well short of making up the difference.

"It's a cheap subterfuge for carbon-emitting companies," said Merrill Goozner, director of the Integrity in Science project at CSPI and co-author of the report. "They get the prestige of associating themselves with major respected universities, yet can control the direction of research, get first rights to intellectual property, and can delay any finding that doesn't help the bottom line."

According to CSPI, the industry-academic partnerships highlighted in Big Oil U. represent a strategic shift for carbon-emitting industries. Instead of discrediting the science behind global warming, companies increasingly want to be seen as part of the solution. Between 1998 and 2005, Exxon gave more than $19 million to groups that promoted the idea that global warming was a hoax. Yet beginning in 2006, ExxonMobil ads proudly touted its contribution to a program at Stanford, a 10-year $225 million program: "Today an energy company and a leading university share a common goal. The common good." Another ExxonMobil ad bore the Stanford University seal. Stanford gave its industry collaborators special rights in eight of the nine areas measured by the survey. The other energy industry-sponsored programs surveyed were at UC-Berkeley, UC-Davis, Princeton, MIT, Rice, Caltech, Georgia Tech, and Carnegie Mellon.

The report recommended that universities accepting corporate funding adopt policies to protect their autonomy and preserve researchers academic freedoms. They included prohibiting representatives of corporate donors from sitting on research programs governing boards; prohibiting industry donors from
controlling the content and direction of research programs; eliminating first rights intellectual property clauses from donor agreements; and ensuring that company representatives cannot make substantive editorial changes in manuscripts or delay their publication.

This story appeared first in Integrity in Science Watch, a weekly newsletter from the Center for Science in the Public Interest.