The focus of research at U. California-Berkeley is at risk of being too heavily influenced by its partnership with BP, according to a study of 10 collaboration contracts between public research institutions and leading energy companies released Thursday by independent researcher Jennifer Washburn.

Washburn’s report – Big Oil Goes to College – examined the logistics of UC Berkeley’s contract agreement and partnership with BP, stating that the campus is compromising its credibility as a public institution. The campus administration issued an eight-page rebuttal, refuting and responding to the report’s findings, according to campus spokesperson Dan Mogulof.

UC Berkeley was one of three public institutions that won a chunk of BP’s $500 million grant to be distributed over 10 years – starting in early 2007 – for the purpose of researching biofuels as alternative energy. Washburn’s report claims that the direction of the research at UC Berkeley is being overly influenced by the corporation.

UC Berkeley is currently receiving $17.3 million a year from BP to fund biofuel energy research. This amount comprises less than 3 percent of the approximately $724 million in funding received annually by the campus for sponsored research, according to the rebuttal. Mogulof said UC Berkeley was not led into the research by the money.

Mogulof added that BP asked UC Berkeley to join their global competition in 2007 to win the funding and the establishment of the Energy Biosciences Institute, where the research will be conducted, because of the campus’s research priorities – climate change and carbon neutral energy.

Washburn’s report claims, among other things, that there exist troubling “conflict-of-interest concerns,” that BP will “exert excessive influence over UC Berkeley’s research portfolio” and that the language and content of the contract is worrisome.

“Industry-funded research is overwhelmingly more likely to favor the sponsor’s projects and interests as compared with research funded by non-profits or government sources,” she said. “The EBI’s current academic director has equity interests in an outside biotech firm that currently has its own business alliance with none other than BP.”

The rebuttal contested this claim, stating that the institute’s director Chris Somerville voluntarily removed himself from “all operational involvement with the companies” and adding that he “does not hold a management, scientific or consulting affiliation” with the biotech firms.

Though the report claims that the contract does not grant an academic majority to the Governance Board – EBI’s main governing body – Mogulof said equal representation on the board was a “negotiated compromise.” Four of the board’s eight members are from UC Berkeley, four are from BP and since all actions of the board must have the affirmative vote of at least five members, each member has a veto power.

Washburn said in conducting the study, it was difficult to get in touch with campus officials, so she “simply tried to look at the actual research agreement that the university signed.”

But Mogulof said he regrets that she did not take the time to talk to faculty members that advise the administration.

“We don’t want to see and will not stand for any tainting of the integrity of our research or our researchers,” he said.