PRESS RELEASE

UB Coalition for Leading Ethically in Academic Research (UB CLEAR) Regarding the University at Buffalos Shale Resources and Society Institute

June 28, 2012

On April 5, 2012, the University at Buffalo administration announced the UB Shale Resources and Society Institute. On May 15, an official UB press release accompanied its first publication: Environmental Impacts During Marcellus Shale Gas Drilling: Causes, Impacts and Remedies. The Institutes formation violates UB procedures for creating centers and institutes. Its funding sources and plans are obscure. It solicits gas industry funding by presenting itself as a reliable advocate for hydraulic fracturing, or fracking. In exchange for contributions, it offers corporations privileged access to research and a special role in governance. And its hurried debut suggests not the independent search for knowledge proper to a university but a frantic and servile willingness to sell academic legitimacy to a gas industry public relations campaign. The Institutes first report is fatally compromised. It was announced as peer-reviewed when it wasnt. Its authors failed to reveal in the report their financial connections to the gas industry. And the report itself is riddled with procedural flaws and errors of fact. The ensuing controversy includes a widely-distributed AP story and an article in the June 11th New York Times. It has damaged UBs hard-won reputation and credibility. In response, a group of SUNY faculty, alums, students, and other citizens have established the UB Coalition for Leading Ethically in Academic Research (UB CLEAR). We call on the UB Administration to take these steps to prevent further damage and regain public trust in the university: Time Out Suspend all funding, publications, and other operations of the Institute. Be Clear Reveal all documents bearing on the formation of the Institute, its staffing, its governance and oversight, and its funding. Explain how and why the Institutes first report came to be described publicly as peer edited and associated with the University itself and not just its authors. Adopt a goal of genuine, active transparency, not just the minimum required by law. Investigate Establish a genuinely independent body, outside UB and the oil and gas industry, to investigate the Institutes formation and its relations to industry and other donors. Discuss Hold a forum in which all interested UB and other community members can raise their concerns about the Institute, receive candid answers, and offer advice. UB CLEAR will hold a press conference on Thursday, June 28th, at 12:00 P.M., at the corner of Main and Bailey, on the UB South Campus, with the covered entrance to Squire Hall as a rain location. We will also launch a statewide electronic campaign in support of this petition.
For more information, please contact Professor Jim Holstun at 884-0895, jamesholstun@hotmail.com.