Are universities an obstacle to climate action by reinforcing the status quo?

Universities occupy a unique and powerful position in society as both creators and disseminators of knowledge. This influence should make them pivotal catalysts for climate action across society. But to fully realise this potential, universities must first transform themselves to prioritise social and ecological wellbeing over purely economic outcomes.

At the recent Rethinking Growth Conference I facilitated a discussion on how universities can leverage their influence and power: As communities of teachers and scholars, universities can challenge the status quo through teaching, research, and through engagement and outreach, including participating in public debates. By decarbonising their own operations, universities can become exemplars of change. But their influence extends far beyond the campus.

While universities are making progress in integrating sustainability across these dimensions, this may be frustrated by conflicts of interest with industry funders. According to a paper by Dr Calum McGeown and Prof John Barry from Queen’s University Belfast, universities play a key role in perpetuating unsustainability, by being captured by neoliberal capitalism. In the UK, universities are increasingly being run as businesses, treating students as consumers and setting strict incentive structures on academics to limit their activities.

A big concern is the “corporate capture” of research, where funding influences the topics and nature of climate change studies. For example, while technical solutions to cutting greenhouse gas emissions receive significant funding, transformative measures that may threaten economic growth do not. Research funding agencies are increasingly mainstreaming social sciences and the humanities into climate mitigation research, but typically in a subordinate role to technical research.

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An over-reliance on research funding from private industry, while beneficial for innovation, can compromise public good research, leading to potential conflicts of interest and biases.

The Ryanair Sustainable Aviation Research Centre at Trinity College Dublin exemplifies this tension: while it may lead to breakthroughs in low-carbon fuels, it is likely to avoid crucial discussions on aviation demand management.

New fuels will come too late, at high cost, and there are limits to sustainable aviation fuel. The company’s recent vicious, persistent and personal attacks on Minister for Climate and Transport, Eamon Ryan, are particularly jarring and follow a history of misleading environmental claims – including denial by chief executive Michael O’Leary of climate change as recently as 2017.

Science historian Naomi Oreskes found research funded by tobacco firms were far less likely to find smoking harmful than independent studies

Universities may need to adopt new ethical procedures when partnering with high-emitting and fossil fuel intensive industries to avoid repeating mistakes of the past.

There are examples across the world of deep financial connections between universities and the fossil fuel industry, which give rise to potential conflicts of interest. A research paper published by Nature Climate Change in 2022 found university-based research centres heavily funded by fossil fuel companies were significantly more favourable towards natural gas than towards renewable energy, than independent research centres, and social media posts were more positive when they mention funders.

History shows more examples of how industry-funded research can skew results. Science historian Naomi Oreskes found research funded by tobacco firms were far less likely to find smoking harmful than independent studies.

Some prominent medical journals refuse to publish studies funded by the tobacco industry for this reason. Should climate change research adopt a similar approach? The “Fossil Free Research” movement argues higher education institutions should refuse funding from fossil fuel sources and ensure academic freedom, for example by supporting “scholar activism”.

The siloed nature of academic disciplines and fragmented funding landscape may also hamper universities’ transformative potential. Climate change is a so-called “wicked problem”: solutions require multiple disciplines and viewpoints. While the value of interdisciplinarity is certainly acknowledged, teaching and research is mainly confined within individual subjects, and career incentives tend to reward specialisation and novelty over synthesis and translation of research. The nature of academic research often leaves little time for public and policy engagement, limiting the real-world impact of academic work.

Teaching is also siloed. Students are often confined to their degree subject, missing a broad understanding of the social and biophysical context of their subjects. In a speech last year, President Michael D Higgins was highly critical of how economics is taught – the narrow focus on “efficiency, productivity, perpetual growth has resulted in a discipline that has become blinkered to the ecological challenge – the ecological catastrophe – we now face”. This problem extends beyond economics.

Given their unique and privileged role within society, universities must fiercely protect their independence and mission for the public good.

Hannah Daly is professor of sustainable energy at University College Cork