Who funds academia?
Between 2017 and 2023, Britain’s top tier universities received more than €325 million in anonymous donations, according to an openDemocracy investigation. Among the alleged donors are fossil fuel giants, arms industry representatives and individuals tied to authoritarian regimes.
Responding to the investigation, politicians from all major parties – as well as more than one hundred academics – have signed open letters demanding greater transparency on university funding. They point to the risk not only of academic institutions being co-opted for money laundering and reputation-cleansing purposes, but also the impact of donor lobbying on degrees. Oxford University alone has reportedly received money from 68 anonymous donors since 2017, for which neither the identities nor the purpose of funding have been made public.
The pushback from several university chancellors is informative: they do not reject accusations of unethical financial backing, rather they claim that “philanthropy” would be severely curtailed without secrecy. Yet these murky conditions are not exclusive to the UK, with Investigate Europe reporting that Norwegian universities have accepted almost €70m from fossil fuel companies since 2016.