Pressure grows on Cambridge University over BP investments

CAMBRIDGE University is embroiled in a row about academic freedom over investments in BP which have caused uproar among staff, including the Government’s former climate change tsar.

The boss of BP was accused of issuing an “outrageous threat” to the university – which is reviewing whether to keep part of its £6.3billion endowment fund invested in fossil fuels – amid pressure from staff and students.

Bob Dudley, the BP chief executive, came under fire after telling an industry conference: “We donate and do a lot of research at Cambridge so I hope they come to their senses.”

His comments reignited the row a week after 350 academics including Prof Sir David King, formerly Britain’s special representative for climate change, and Prof Sir Thomas Blundell, the former president of the UK Science Council, wrote an open letter to Cambridge calling on it to “immediately freeze any new investments in fossil fuel companies, and to divest from direct ownership and any commingled funds”.

Cambridge University has repeatedly clashed with academics and students over its investments in fossil fuels, part of the largest endowment fund in the UK, partly due to concerns over research funding. BP, Exxonmobil and Shell have all donated money to the university and it has said in the past that it needs to consider the “consequences of any divestment”.

Activists in the Cambridge Zero Carbon Society said Mr Dudley’s comments meant that “Cambridge’s academic independence is under threat”. They added: “If the university is unable to divest its endowment in line with the democratic wishes of students and staff due to these threats, then there is no longer academic independence at Cambridge.”

BP denied that Mr Dudley’s comments represented a threat. A spokesman said: “BP has long worked closely with the University of Cambridge – and we don’t expect this to change. One should not infer from Bob’s comments that he was in anyway linking our support of Cambridge with the university’s decision on whether or not to divest from the oil and gas industry.”

Cambridge Zero Carbon Society responded by saying that if it was not an attempt at “blackmail”, then “the last of university management’s justifications for inaction is null and void. Do they have any actual reason for trampling on democracy other than not wanting to upset their corporate pals?”