Interactive database mappingfossilties.org maps the ties between coal, oil and gas companies and Dutch universities with regard to funding of research and professors, sponsoring of study associations, the companies’ presence at career events, and guest lectures. The database is based on decentralized research and crowdsourcing and will be updated in the coming months. The information will also include various WOO (Dutch Public Access to Government Information Act) requests, which were recently submitted by Mapping Fossil Ties Coalition. TU/e, too, received such a WOO request, and Cursor had access to the documents.

Mapping Fossil Ties Coalition is a collaboration by local and national organisations of among others Solid Sustainability Research (SSR), University Rebellion and End Fossil. 'We support and coordinate decentralised research into relationships between universities and fossil companies. We do this through decentralised information gathering on campuses, freedom of information (FOI) requests, and crowdsourcing,' they state on their website. 

More favorable towards gas

In its press release, SSR further states that “recent research has shown that fossil-funded centers are more favorable in their reports towards natural gas. Financing can also influence research focus towards technologies that have the smallest impact on fossil companies’ business models instead of towards those that we need the most in order to realize the energy transition.”

It may take a while before it becomes clear if and when the universities will comply with the research group’s WOO request: the processing of such a request usually takes four weeks, and in the case of a complex dossier – such as this one – an extension of an additional two-week period may be requested. In addition, organizations can invoke exceptions if they wish not to divulge certain data, such as diplomatic communications, or national security sensitive information. In practice, WOO requests have regularly resulted in lengthy redacted documents.