Mapping Fossil Ties: Decentralised research into ties between universities and the fossil fuel industry

Universities are under increasing scrutiny from students, staff and society about their ties with the fossil fuel industry. Such ties include research cooperations and commissions, influence and participation in study programmes, sponsoring of students and student societies, sponsored professorships and staff ancilliary activities, presence at careers fairs and alumni networks. For fair and open discussion on what relationships between universities and the fossil fuel industry are appropriate, such relationships must be transparent - currently this is not the case. 

In the Netherlands, the Mapping Fossil Ties coalition - a research coalition of student and staff activists, NGOs and independent investigators - map these "fossil ties" and track the influence of fossil fuel companies in universities. We use a variety of methods: freedom of information (FOI) requests to universities and funding bodies, web scraping, and decentralised, crowdsourced information gathering on campus. From this, we could build a fuller picture of how Dutch academia interacts with and is influenced by the fossil industry, and can identify hidden, yet problematic ties. 

The collaborations, news coverage, and state of the debate are continually updated on a web portal (mappingfossilties.org) for the use of investigative journalists, (activist) student and university staff, NGOs, policymakers, and the public. In this talk we present our methodology, the impact that this research has had on the Dutch public debate, how this research underpins student and staff activism, and points for improvement and learning. Finally we discuss how we are replicating such research in other countries, and how others can do so too.