Berkeley, Biology and British Petroleum: Public Academics-and the Academician-in a Corporatized World

Lecture by Ignacio Chapela. 

In 1997, and then again in 2007, the University of California at Berkeley was the epicenter of key developments in the history of public research institutions, universities and academe in general.The proposal to have intimate and very substantial financial relationships with two major transnational corporations (Novartis and British Petroleum, a.k.a.
BP) was met, in both occasions, with opposition on the part of some faculty and many members of the public. The dynamics of these local developments can be seen as emblematic of much larger processes taking place within the Modern enterprise of a social programme based on innovation and RD&D (Research, Development and Delivery). This presentation will discuss the incorporation of Biology, through "biotechnology", into the paradigm of RD&D progress, specifically from the viewpoint of Berkeley and the University of California. Here, the forces driving much of science and academe in our days are clearly
discernible: on the side of industrial development those forces include corporatization, entrepreneurship, reliance on intellectual property protection and venture-capital, while on the other hand academia is impacted by the rise of "big science", politization and militarization.
How these forces work in tension with each other will be analyzed using the case-study of the presenter, who has been engaged in opposition to privatizing forces in Berkeley and to the final incorporation of Biology into the world of corporations and large, concentrated venture capital.
In discussion with the audience, we will scrutinize the options available to individual scientists, engineers and academicians in general, in the face of forces that would appear overwhelming. What are the alternatives? How to balance public principles with personal interests? How is the public represented in the work of academe? Whence has academic freedom wandered?

Ignacio Chapela is an Associate Professor at Department of Environmental Science, Policy and Management. University of California, Berkeley.