GOVERNMENT SUBSIDISING BIG OIL COMPANIES AND FUELLING GLOBAL WARMING

BIG OIL COMPANIES CO-OPTING 'INDEPENDENT' UNIVERSITY RESEARCH AT TAXPAYERS’ EXPENSE
 
Government is subsidising the oil and gas industry’s massive profits to the tune of £40 million per year through the “capture” of some of Britain’s most respected academic institutions, says a new report released today, Tuesday the 18th of February, by the New Economics Foundation, Corporate Watch and Platform. 

The report is released as the government- backed fossil fuel industry recruitment road show rolls into Swansea University as part of a national tour. “Degrees of Capture", outlines how Britain’s universities and colleges are being co-opted into directing their research and training for the benefit of the fossil fuel industry, with potentially devastating long-term effects on the environment. This compromising link between academic research and corporate profit is being encouraged and furthered by government spending priorities.
 
Despite the government’s own stated goals in the face of global warming of “reducing our use of fossil fuels, and replacing them with non-fossil sources”, huge sums of public money are being spent on research of direct use only to the massively profitable, and highly damaging, oil and gas industries.
 
Author of the report, Greg Muttitt of Platform, said “Climate change is the biggest threat facing mankind at present. It is shocking that while we urgently need to be reducing our dependence on fossil fuels, government and academic institutions are taking us in exactly the opposite direction.”  

The report shows that:
 
-         Universities contribute about 1000 research projects, worth £67 million, every year to the oil and gas industry.
 
-       60 per cent of this is funded by public money.
 
-         Oil companies have effectively captured higher education by infiltrating every level of academic decision making: both universities and government prioritise boosting corporate profits over solving major public problems such as climate change
 
“Publicly funded research into fossil fuels technologies, and ‘search and exploit’ missions to find and develop oil fields, is a bad subsidy and is artificially distorting energy markets in favour of the big oil and gas companies,” says Andrew Simms, policy director of the New Economics Foundation, “It undermines progress towards the necessary development of renewable energy alternatives. The neglect means that solutions to global warming could already have been fatally delayed.”
 
The report outlines the mechanisms of ‘capture’ of academic departments and institutions that takes place through personal connections, donations, funding and employment for graduates. Oil companies may donate buildings, equipment and cash, and sponsor academic posts and staff or student secondments - revenue streams that cash strapped universities can ill afford to refuse.
 
Just 11 institutions in the UK carried out 60 per cent of the oil and gas industry’s research projects, among them some of the most respected British universities and colleges such as UCL, Imperial, Glasgow, UMIST and others.
 
This high concentration suggests that some departments may become dependent on fossil fuel funding. Shell, the second largest British oil and gas company, alone spends £3.6 million a year in universities, where research is cheaper, collaborative, and a wider range of expertise is available than in more secretive “in house” proprietary research.
 
There is also a startling concentration in the publicly funded training for the oil and gas industries - over 45 per cent of the university graduates taking up employment in the sector are drawn from just four of this same group of universities.
 
Rebecca Spencer of Corporate Watch, said: “Degrees of Capture exposes one part of the creeping takeover of British universities by corporate interests. This takeover threatens academic independence, damages our universities’ credibility and could have serious consequences for society as a whole”
 
 
The report recommends that:
 
-         All public money spent on energy research should be redirected toward finding viable, sustainable energy sources.
 
-        The involvement of private interests in public institutions should be made transparent through a central, open access register of all institutions’ and academics’ industry links and interests.
 
-        Public research funding bodies like the Research Councils should adopt a commitment that prioritises problem-solving in issues of major public interest, such as global warming, over furthering the generation of private profit.