Students toasted with and drank 'crude oil' outside an Oxford University building.
The black liquid in their glasses was to protest the £1.6 million in funding the world-leading institution has accepted from fossil fuel companies between August 2020 to July 2021.
Student-led Oxford Climate Justice Campaign led the action outside the Said Business School, an institution that benefitted from the bulk of this funding.
The school received £1,340,125 million from Eni, an Italian multinational oil and gas company.
Of this, £769,500 went to ‘Saïd Business School Eni Scholarships’ and the remaining £571,125 went to the ‘Saïd Business School Centre for Corporate Reputation’, according to the OCJC report.
The remaining money accepted by Oxford University is made up of smaller funds to different faculties from BP, one of the world’s biggest oil and gas companies; Shell, a petrochemical company; and Mitsubishi, a Japanese automobile manufacturer.
A report the OCJC published last month branded the university ‘hypocritical’ for accepting this funding from oil, gas and petrol companies, as the university aims to achieve net-zero carbon by 2035.
OCJC member and third-year student Phil Hutchinson discovered the figure after submitting a Freedom of Information request to the university in October.
In terms of what could bring about a change, Philip Hutchinson said: "To be honest, I don’t think it’s a question of ‘if’ Oxford will stop taking this money, it is a question of ‘when’.
"We want Oxford to make that decision sooner rather than later. The sooner it does, the more time we have to tackle this issue of climate change.”
In response, the University of Oxford has said that those donating or sponsoring programmes at the university do not influence their research.
It said: “The University of Oxford safeguards the independence of its teaching and research programmes, regardless of the nature of their funding.
"Researchers publish the results of their work whether the results are seen to be critical or favourable by industry or governments.
"Our partnerships with industry allow the University to apply its knowledge to real challenges of pressing global concern, with funding often going directly into research into climate-related issues and renewables.
“None of the philanthropic funding highlighted by OCJC has gone into extraction and exploration research. Rather, it has been used to widen access to education and to fund scholarships, academic posts, and capital costs.
“The proportion of research funding going into fossil fuel exploration and extraction has declined significantly over the last decade, whilst the percentage going into renewables projects has increased.”
READ MORE: Oxford University 'hypocrites' for accepting £1.6 million in fossil fuel grants
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