Google hits back over claims of funding favourable research

Google has labelled a report which claims it has funded academic research that looks on the firm favourably as “highly misleading”.

Research by the US-based watchdog Campaign for Accountability (CfA) said Google handed scholars – including some in the UK – cash to produce academic papers in support of Google’s policy position to curry favour with and influence the public.

However, the technology giant has refuted the claims.

Director of public policy Leslie Miller said: “We run many research programmes that provide funding and resources to the external research community.

“This helps public and private institutions pursue research on important topics in computer science, technology and a wide range of public policy and legal issues.

“Our support for the principles underlying an open internet is shared by many academics and institutions, who have a long history of undertaking research on these topics – across important areas like copyright, patents and free expression.

“We provide support to help them undertake further research and to raise awareness of their ideas.”

The CfA report identified 329 research papers published between 2005 and 2017 on public policy matters of interest to Google that were in some way funded by the company.

In more than half of those cases (54%), academics were directly funded by Google, the watchdog said. The remainder worked for, or were affiliated with, groups or institutions that were funded by the company.

The Google Transparency Project also claimed academics did not disclose Google funding in two-thirds of cases (66%).

Ms Miller said Google expects and requires grantees to properly disclose funding and to maintain their independence, adding that several academics included in the report had criticised Google’s policy positions.