How the oil and gas industry influences higher education

As the climate crisis gets worse, global fossil fuel production is growing and oil and gas companies are making record profits.

While the powerful influence of the fossil fuel industry’s lobbying on climate policy is increasingly acknowledged, our new research also shows how oil and gas companies are influencing universities.

We are researchers with combined expertise on just energy transitions and climate justice and the university (the title of Jennie Stephens’s forthcoming book). With international colleagues we undertook the first comprehensive review of academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel industries’ ties to higher education in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia.

In all four countries, the research shows multiple ways oil and gas companies have been investing in universities.

Broad range of tactics

Some of this research demonstrates how providing funding for research on fossil fuels and fossil fuel technologies orients university research toward fossil fuel friendly approaches to addressing the climate crisis — and detracts attention away from more transformative approaches.

In Canada, for example, one researcher found that 238 large fossil fuel companies and 21 industry associations were deeply embedded in 34 university and government institutes researching technologies intended to “green” fossil fuel production.

Another mechanism for fossil fuel influence is incentivizing industry representatives to donate to universities and serve in university posts and governing boards.

In the United States, for example, a former executive at ExxonMobil who is now the vice chair of the Board of Trustees at Northeastern University explained context around reconnecting with the university as an alumnus, saying his company, Exxon, offered its employees a generous matching gifts program. In the context of growing recognition about the power of big donors, our research shows big oil has been encouraging philanthropy to universities for some time.

Industry-friendly curricula

Fossil fuel companies have also been engaging in university curriculum design that promotes fossil fuel futures. In Australia, for example, dozens of fossil fuel industry representatives were involved in developing and teaching the undergraduate program at the School of Oil and Gas Engineering at the University of Western Australia.

In the U.K., an investigation revealed BP, Shell and Equinor advised university institutions on running engineering and geoscience degrees. Universities including Oxford, Edinburgh and University College London admitted they took advice on degree courses from fossil fuel companies.

Providing funding for endowed professorships and scholarships as well as supporting public lectures and conferences are additional ways the fossil fuel industry partners with universities. In Canada, ConocoPhillips and Enbridge have funded professorships at the Universities of Alberta and Calgary, and in the U.S. Shell Oil donated $2 million to Colorado State University for an endowed chair.

In the U.K., each year Oxford University students can apply for Oxford’s BP Scholarships which provides £3000 (about C$5,300) to support their studies.

Oil and gas companies also make their presence known at universities by naming buildings, hosting career recruitment events on campus and training fossil fuel industry employees.

Read more: The renaming of universities and campus buildings reflects changing attitudes and values

‘Climate obstruction’

We also reviewed what is known about why oil and gas companies invest in universities.

Climate obstruction is the term used to describe intentional efforts to block climate action.

Research on how the fossil fuel industry has been obstructing climate action and lying about climate science to deny climate change and delay climate policies has identified a sophisticated, long-term strategic industry-wide effort.

A full picture of how the fossil fuel industry has leveraged higher education to block climate action and advance their interests has been less well understood.

One study found university research funded by the fossil fuel industry is more favourable to natural gas and more negative on renewable energy than research that isn’t industry funded.

Just as funding from the tobacco and pharmaceutical industries has influenced science to favour industry, fossil fuel funding of university research has legitimized continued fossil fuel reliance.

Because universities are assumed to be conducting independent research, fossil fuel companies have been leveraging higher education to enhance their credibility, influence policy and prolong a fossil fuel future.

As just one example, a 2017 internal memo presented to BP by a public relations firm suggested the company target Princeton University as a “partner” capable of “authenticating BP’s commitment to low carbon.”

The industry has leveraged universities to make the case to weaken regulations, reduce taxation and ensure fossil fuels are part of the mix in a low-carbon transition.

Promoting technological fixes

Our study also found industry funding in universities has focused academic climate research toward narrow technological fixes and “false” non-transformative solutions. This draws attention, time and resources away from more systemic and structural social and economic changes that would phase out fossil fuels.

For example, industry has supported academic research on fossil fuel technologies such as carbon capture and storage and fracking. These technologies not only prolong fossil fuel reliance but they have also contributed to increases in energy consumption and fossil fuel production.

Read more: ‘Transformative change’: idea will be key in fight for climate and wildlife

Disclose and sever ties

Our study highlights the importance of universities disclosing their financial and contractual ties with fossil fuel companies.

Many universities have refused to disclose funding sources even when freedom of information requests have been made, citing the need to maintain confidentiality for reasons of proprietary information and competition.

If universities are to prioritize the public good, severing ties with fossil fuel companies and other extractive industries is important. More than 950 academics have called on U.K. and U.S. universities to do this in an open letter.

The integrity of universities

When academics and their institutions become “captured,” or strategically used by fossil fuel industries, academics’ professional interests become entangled with those of the industry. Our research shows universities are lending academic credibility to fossil fuel futures and guiding public discourse toward the industry’s preferred climate change “solutions.”

The fossil fuel industry’s capture of academia compromises the public trust and integrity of universities. When higher education institutions accept fossil fuel funding, they are also inadvertently supporting and endorsing ecological destruction and human suffering.

With worsening climate instability and deepening climate injustices, humanity is in need of independent higher education institutions that are publicly funded to advance knowledge that contributes to a more healthy, stable and equitable future.

This is a corrected version of a story originally published Sept. 8, 2024. The earlier story said about C$1,600 instead of about C$5,300.

Emily Eaton receives funding from the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council. She is a research associate with the Canadian Centre for Policy Alternatives

Jennie C. Stephens has received funding from the Canadian New Frontiers in Research Fund, the US National Science Foundation, and the Climate Social Science Network. She is a climate justice advocate who is active in the Fossil Fuel Non-Proliferation Treaty and multiple other not-for-profit advocacy groups.