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For accountable research policies
UC Berkeley needs a democratic process for reviewing
and accepting large corporate deals at our university. We believe
students, faculty, and staff must be openly incorporated in all steps
of the decision-making process. We believe, because Berkeley is a
public institution, that input from the wider community of
stake-holders--including residents of Berkeley and California, and
local and international organizations--must be considered.
Regarding the BP Deal:
- Even though this is a deal between the entire university
and BP, the vast majority of students and faculty have not been
included in negotiation of the deal between BP and top UCB
administrators. Only the administration, BP, the proposed researchers,
and five pro-deal faculty representatives have been allowed to the
table. Members of the administration have stated that democratic input on the deal is unacceptable "because there would likely never be a consensus on the matter".
- The recommendations in the UCB-commissioned external review of the Novartis deal
with our university have been ignored, although the BP deal is 20 times
larger. For example, the first recommendation is "avoid industry
agreements that involve complete academic units or large groups of
researchers."
- At least one basic faculty governance processes has
been bypassed for new faculty hires for the EBI. At the faculty forum
meeting on March 8, in response to question on consultation with the
Budget Committee for new faculty hires, Vice Chancellor for Research
Beth Burnside said they had not been consulted, thereby admitting that
the absolute gold standard process for new faculty hires at our
University had been bypassed (see 1:08:00 onwards in the faculty forum webcast).
- The only approximation of democratic review of the
deal was at a forum on the topic for College of Natural Resources
students, at the end of which the Dean of that college called a straw
poll. Every person in the room said they were not in favor of the deal
in its proposed form. Since then, the administration has refused to
hold straw polls at any events, even when explicitly asked.
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