LSU's fossil-fuel partnerships | The Lens
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At Louisiana’s flagship university, oil companies can influence research and coursework for a price. One critic described the industry votes on research agendas, as described in the boilerplate document, as “an egregious violation of academic freedom.”

For $5 million dollars, Louisiana’s flagship university will let an oil company help choose which faculty research projects move forward. Or, for $100,000, a corporation can participate in a research study, with “robust” reviewing powers and access to resulting intellectual property.

Those are the conditions outlined in a boilerplate document that Louisiana State University’s fundraising arm circulated to oil majors and chemical companies affiliated with the Louisiana Chemical Association, an industry lobbying group, according to emails disclosed in response to a public records request by The Lens.

Records show that after Shell donated $25 million in 2022 to LSU to create the Institute for Energy Innovation, the university gave the fossil-fuel corporation license to influence research and coursework for the university’s new concentration in carbon capture, use, and storage.