BP courts Berkeley

Too many people criticize American Academia for its increasing corporate flavor.

Here's an interesting article, pick of the week at Mother Jones.

Does it Matter if BP Sleeps With UC Berkeley and Californians Fund Their Hotel Room?

By Julia Whitty

Excerpt:

Nature.com, website of the British
science journal Nature, reports on growing concerns about
oil-giant BP's $50-million energy research partnership with
the University of California Berkeley. On February 1, BP
announced it will fund a decade of alternative-energy research
by Berkeley and its partners, the Lawrence Berkeley National
Laboratory (LBNL) and the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
-- fueling worries about the affair.

Some fear that the pact -- for
which final details are still being worked out -- could be a
repeat of a controversial $25-million contract that the
university entered into in 1998 with the biotech giant Novartis.
That deal expired in 2003, amid criticism that the academic freedom
of some university researchers had been compromised.

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