Berkeley is about to enter a contract with BP (nee British Petroleum) that is supposed to lead to alternative energy development. I don't know anything about the deal and was hoping the policy community could help me understand. All I do know is historical, in that the Novartis contract a few years back riled quite a few people. It had a flawed patent sharing agreement that basically gave Novartis free access to patents that had been developed heavily through public funding. In other words it was like subsidizing the profit making apparatus of an already profitable drug company.
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Hm. I should know more about this than I do.
There was an article in the Chronicle yesterday about UC Faculty debate on the deal. See: UC Faculty to debate....
The main concern, as usual in these deals, is academic freedom. Can researchers be objective when they have Corporate managers? I think this is an interesting question.
On the patent issue - I know what you mean. There is always some concern about corporations profiting from public research. But, didn't the University of Wisconsin claim to pretty much all stem cell research patents just get rejected? I guess I'm pointing out that the reverse is true as well. If the new biofuels BP is on the verge of developing - which have the potential to decrease petroleum dependence and greenhouse gas emissions from transportation - are tied up so that truckers pay diesel costs to the University... well where do we end up?
I think there are a few significant public goods coming out of this research -- and heck, we should be spending much more public money addressing these problems and pursuing this research. If we're doing that in partnership with a major corporate marketer - well, good, maybe the whole thing will actually happen. Maybe it's a win-win.
I have a couple of comments to make on the EBI. My first reaction is that the "Controversy" is coming from a strange place. Let's break it down.
First: If Faculty Member X got a $5,000 grant from BP to study alternative fuels, there would be no problem. The university has entire intellectual property policy on patents plus we have the Bayh-Dole Act from 1980. (check out http://ipira.berkeley.edu/ for more info...) So having qualms about the quantity of the dollars being given out may well be legitimate - but nervousness about the size of the check should not be rooted in nervousness from something else. I would argue that the watchdog effect that is happening now is making certain that everything is being sunshined properly and the process is working AS IT IS SUPPOSED TO.
Second: The need of this issue is tremendously important. Quite possibly one of the most important issues that we as a society wil face in the next 50 years. In California, 40% of our Greenhouse Gas emissions comes from the transportation sector. While in the electric power sector we have fuel competition (coal, renewables, nuclear, natural gas) to help sort out the externalities generated from the threat of climate change, we do not have fuel competition in cars. We have gasoline. There is no competition. Ehanol and blends, Diesel are such a small portion of the market, and they are blended with gas. The state has recognized this and has both the Low Carbon Fuel Standard and at a higher level, is saying that we need to invest in alternative fuels for transportation. Henc why the state has also contributed a large amount of money (~$50 million) to the EBI agreement. So you get the effect of having a public good nature of the research and a public interest to make certain that this works. Is there a competitive advantage to BP's investment? Of course. But the state is also benefitting a tremendous amount.
Yes, but the academic freedom issue isn't addressed in your points above. The "problem" there is quite different.
A few years ago, a bunch of "energy" (read oil) companies founded a climate change center at Stanford. The academic freedom argument there might be more easily highlighted -- if it's in the company's interest to say that climate change is not caused by combusting fuels; would they be able to suppress academic information to the contrary? Does a researcher with a corporate mandate have the same freedom to explore and analyze information and trends as other Academics? (Does anyone really ever have this freedom since they have to get funding anyway?) I think this is an interesting set of questions.
I love scientist-activists.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/03/02/BAGNEOE6QD1.DTL&hw=sticky+situation+berkeley&sn=001&sc=1000
That's amazing.
For the question of academic freedom, I understand exactly what Christine's point is, but I think that my second point about the interest of the state was trying to address that. To spell it out a bit more, if the state has also contributed money, and we have the Bayh-Dole Act, and some other things, then there's more avenues to let information be shared. Plus this is a partnership with LBNL and UIUC, and it's much harder to keep a lid on three agencies. I also think that we have learned a tremendous amount from the Stanford deal - but the premise of what this is trying to accomplish is fundamentally different that our "friends" across the bay. Is there interesting ethical questions at play? Most certainly. Is it enough of a reason to stop the deal. In my opinion, no.
sorry for the double post, but I don't know how to edit my previously posted to update.
The academic senate voted on this today. Of particular importance is the following:
By a resounding voice vote, faculty agreed Thursday that "grave issues of academic freedom would be raised" by any deviation from the principle that "no unit of the university … has the authority to prevent a faculty member from accepting external research funding based solely on the source of funds," and that "any intervention on the basis of assumptions about the moral or political standing of the donor is unwarranted."
Lots more info on the resolutions can be found here
The academic freedom argument runs both ways: faculty in favor of the BP deal say that opposing it limits their academic freedom.
However, academic freedom, in the sense used by Merton, Kahn, or Polanyi, is the freedom to ask the research questions. To the extent any source of research funding limits scientists' ability to set the research questions by some process guided by goals different from the pursuit of the truth as it exists in the real world (and this is basic science), then academic freedom is compromised.
Obviously, pure academic freedom hardly exists, although a competitive, peer-reviewed process is the best we've found.
This process will be used by the EBI to accept proposals. However, at their March 19th talk, they would not specify what scientists would be part of the peer-review process or who would be writing the calls for proposals.
Global warming is obviously important; but it can not be used to justify everything. Decisions need to be evaluated on other criteria too. I wonder (worry?) that biofuels may now become the main thing to research at the expense of other alternatives? I don't know enough about this to know if this is a legitimate concern -I tend to think it is not given the amount of money and efforts across the world- but I do think this is the important issue: to what extent can the EBI narrow down our energy choices without society realizing it, and without the proper variables having been considered?
Finally, Claire, Ali, the activist scientist, is in my STS class. We have excellent discussions!