Hiltner, Sofia and Eaton, Emily and Healy, Noel and Scerri, Andrew and Stephens, Jennie C. and Supran, Geoffrey (2024) Fossil fuel industry influence in higher education: A review and a research agenda. WIREs Climate Change, e904. pp. 1-22. ISSN 1757-7780

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Abstract

The evolution of fossil fuel industry tactics for obstructing climate action, fromoutright denial of climate change to more subtle techniques of delay, is undergrowing scrutiny. One key site of ongoing climate obstructionism identified byresearchers, journalists, and advocates is higher education. Scholars haveexhaustively documented how industry-sponsored academic research tends tobias scholarship in favor of tobacco, pharmaceutical, food, sugar, lead, andother industries, but the contemporary influence of fossil fuel interests onhigher education has received relatively little academic attention. We reportthe first literature review of academic and civil society investigations into fossil fuel industry ties to higher education in the United States, United Kingdom,Canada, and Australia. We find that universities are an established yet under-researched vehicle of climate obstruction by the fossil fuel industry, and that universities' lack of transparency about their partnerships with this industry poses a challenge to empirical research. We propose a research agenda of topi-cal and methodological directions for future analyses of the prevalence and consequences of fossil fuel industry–university partnerships, and responses to them.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Funding information: High Tide Foundation; National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship; National Institute on Aging(NIA), Grant/Award Number:T32-AG000221
Keywords:	climate change; conflict of interest; corporate obstruction; fossil fuels; higher education;
Academic Unit:	Faculty of Social Sciences > Research Institutes > Irish Climate Analysis and Research Units, ICARUS
Item ID:	18842
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.1002/wcc.904
Depositing User:	Corinne Voces
Date Deposited:	10 Sep 2024 08:52
Journal or Publication Title:	WIREs Climate Change
Publisher:	Wiley Online
Refereed:	Yes
URI:	Publisher
Use Licence:	This item is available under a Creative Commons Attribution Non Commercial Share Alike Licence (CC BY-NC-SA). Details of this licence are available here

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