Oil giant BP’s proposed research deal with UC Berkeley is threatening to push academic integrity aside in favor of profits, writes author Jennifer Washburn in the Los Angeles Times.
"This is shameful " says Washburn, a New America Foundation Fellow. "The core mission of Berkeley is education, open knowledge exchange and objective research, not making money or furthering the interests of a private firm. In the last two decades, however, Cal and other universities — increasingly desperate for research dollars — have signed agreements that fail to protect their essential independence, allowing corporations excessive control over their research."
Under the proposed deal BP would pay Berkeley $500 million — $50 million a year for the next decade to create the Energy Biosciences Institute. The proposed deal has no limit on BP’s ability to market the University of California’s name, and it offers some exclusive licenses of the new technology to BP, rather than making those patents available to everyone. BP scientists would conduct the company’s own research in secret on campus.
University officials have tried to suggest that the proposed deal is in keeping woith normal university practices regarding who would control discoveries. However, writes Washburn, the proposed deal actually notes its terms on intellectual property " ‘deviate from standard policy’ and ‘require exceptions to policy in order to be implemented.’ "
Washburn notes that Robert Reich, former secretary of labor and now a professor of public policy at Berkeley, has warned that — because of its size and commercial scope — the BP deal could be either "a huge feather in Berkeley’s cap or a huge noose around Berkeley’s neck."
Now it’s up to the UC Regents to demand that all the results of the new institute’s research stay in the public domain and that BP be required to seek permission from the Regents themselves for every advertisement mentioning the University of California.
Washburn, whose book University Inc. documents the corrupting influence of corporations on American institutions of higher learning, is not optimistic about UC Berkeley.
She concludes: " UC President Robert Dynes has characterized the BP deal in telling words. ‘It ‘s my belief,’ he said, ‘that we are reinventing the research university in this public-private partnership.’
"Five hundred million dollars is a nice chunk of change, but does any amount of money justify ‘reinventing’ UC Berkeley’s academic integrity? That’s what UC officials should ask themselves before they sign this deal."