Stanford University has decided to maintain its controversial ties to the fossil fuel industry, citing academic freedom and the need for practical knowledge in the search for climate-crisis solutions.
A long-awaited committee report, released this month, calls for “better guardrails” but not a blanket ban on research funding by oil and gas companies.
“It should be our university’s mission to search for next-generation solutions to the climate crisis wherever our faculty and our students believe they will be found,” the 47-page report noted. “For the foreseeable future, that search may involve fossil fuel industry data, partners, and resources.”
The decision angered many students and prominent faculty who have fought to limit the industry’s role on campus. They say oil and gas money could warp scholarly priorities, taint the university’s reputation and help the industry gain false legitimacy.
“The university programs should not be sponsoring fossil fuel-related research, just like it shouldn’t be supporting tobacco-related research,” said Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering who is leading a Stanford team modeling how to take more than 100 nations to all-renewable power by 2035.
Pediatrics professor Dr. Lisa Patel, executive director of the Medical Society Consortium on Climate and Health, described the report as a “disappointment to students, faculty, and staff that were looking to Stanford to lead on the climate crisis…Big Oil has and will continue to do all it can to extend the life and profits of its industry, at the expense of our health and well-being.”
Thom Hersbach, of the Stanford Woods Institute and the Coalition for a True School of Sustainability, said the report “lacks courage and moral clarity.”
The decision comes as universities across the nation face increasing pressure to re-evaluate their research partnerships with companies whose core business is the extraction and sale of oil and gas, even if they are exploring a future transition toward safer fuels.
Some universities, such as Cambridge and Princeton, have distanced themselves from such funds. Others, such as UC Berkeley and MIT, accept them.
According to a study by the think tank Data for Progress, fossil fuel companies gave UC Berkeley $154 million and Stanford $56 million in research funds between 2010 and 2020.
“Not all funding from oil and gas companies is necessarily exploitative. We get funding for various kinds of clean energy projects, as well,” said UC spokesman Roqua Montez. Companies don’t dictate UC Berkeley’s research agenda, he added.
Stanford’s Doerr School of Sustainability, created two years ago to find solutions to climate change, has 13 “affiliate programs” in which companies such as ExxonMobil, BP and Chevron sponsor research groups. These industrial affiliates are not merely donors but often work with faculty and students.
The school will work with companies “that are making measurably meaningful efforts to be part of the solution,” according to Arun Majumdar, the school’s dean.
A university committee created to evaluate the funding policy submitted its report this month. Rather than dissociating from fossil fuel companies, the report said, “better guardrails are needed to ensure scientific independence.”
The report noted the “great value to faculty research, to student funding, and ultimately to the university’s contributions to practical knowledge” from industrial affiliates programs.
In response, more than 900 students, faculty and alumnae signed an open letter urging the school to decline funding from fossil fuel companies.
The university’s policy on academic freedom, which states that “expression of the widest range of viewpoints should be encouraged,” can help find solutions to the climate crisis, according to the report.
Scientists disagree about the role that fossil fuel companies will play in the clean-energy transition, so they differ on whether and how best to engage with them, said Rob Jackson, professor and Senior Fellow at the Woods Institute for the Environment and at the Precourt Institute for Energy.
“The committee’s decision was almost inevitable, given the academic freedom of faculty to be allowed to work on and with whomever they want,” he said.
But the issue isn’t about academic freedom, countered Jacobson, but the university’s sponsorship of such programs.
Oil and gas companies seek university-based research because “it gives them cover — that they’re helping,” he said. Corporate funding “affects the credibility of researchers.”
Environmental groups decried Stanford’s decision.
“When you’re trying to solve the climate problem, you don’t collaborate with companies that are hell-bent on preserving fossil fuel extraction well into the future,” said Alex Marquardt of the Climate Defense Project.
Cheryl Weiden of 350 Silicon Valley, a nonprofit that fights climate change, said “The fossil fuel companies are paying for solutions that will allow them to keep digging. It’s about the money.”
Students said they were frustrated that the committee didn’t consider their recommendations or acknowledge a resolution calling for dissociation.
Energy policy student Amanda Campos urged the university to adopt strict criteria for evaluating the objectives of oil-funded research and take steps to enforce these criteria.
“Stanford is failing to be a leader where it matters most,” said civil and environmental engineering student Daly Wettermark. “Partnerships with fossil fuel companies are only serving to enable them and delay meaningful change.”