Report: Loose Governance in Oil Company/University Agreements

(U.S. Department of Energy)

The Center for American Progress (CAP), a progressive issues analysis organization in Washington, DC, reviewed 10 agreements between universities in the U.S. and oil companies where the companies offer to fund energy research, particularly in alternative fuels. The report finds several areas where the agreements have the potential to compromise academic freedom and limit the independence of the universities.

CAP found nine of the 10 energy-research agreements in which the university partners do not have majority academic control over the central governing body directing the university-industry alliance. Four of the 10 alliances actually give the industry sponsors full governance control.

None of the 10 agreements requires faculty research proposals to be evaluated and funding awarded based on independent peer review, the traditional method for awarding academic and scientific research grants based on scientific merit. Eight of the 10 agreements give the corporate sponsors full control of both the evaluation and selection of faculty research proposals in each new grant cycle.

In eight of the 10 agreements there are no specifications spelling out in advance how faculty apply for funding under the agreements, and what the evaluation and selection criteria will be.

Nine of the 10 agreements have no rules for managing financial conflicts of interest related to the company/university alliance and its research functions. None of these agreements specifies that committee members charged with evaluating and selecting faculty research proposals be impartial, or even avoid awards of corporate funding to themselves.

The CAP report notes that agreements between corporations and public bodies, including universities, are becoming a more common means of funding energy research. It quotes a Department of Energy official who says that 80 to 90 percent of federal research money financing renewable-energy and efficiency R&D is disbursed through some form of public-private cost-sharing arrangement.

CAP acquired the contract documents for 10 oil company/university research partnerships where funding totals $883 million over 10 years. Independent legal experts then reviewed the agreements and in some cases got responses to their reviews from the universities. CAP acknowledges that the contract reviews involve some subjective judgments and that some contract provisions have not been legally tested in the courts.

Related:

• Bacteria Monitors Can Measure State of Oil Fields
• University, Oil Company Partner on Infrastructure Corrosion

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