Imperial Has £2.3 Million Invested in Tobacco Firms Via Endowment
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ISSUE 1636 FRIDAY 27th MAY 2016 The Student Newspaper of Imperial College London Help – the library is We own a million quid's still really hot worth of McDonalds PAGE 10 COMMENT PAGE 7 FEATURES Imperial Imperial has £2.3 million invested gets 20% of its research in tobacco firms via endowment money from the EU Grace Rahman Editor-in-Chief mperial receives just over 20% of its research funding from the EU, according to a report by a research software firm. Over the last ten years, the EU has Igiven Imperial grants in the region of £342 million. The research hints towards the idea that if the public vote for Brexit in June’s referendum, this funding would be lost, leaving an annual £1 billion gap in British research. It reports that 22 other London institutions also benefit from EU grants, with King’s getting 30% of its funding from the EU, and Greenwich 25%. Digital Science’s report also showed that the UK is the second- biggest beneficiary of EU funding for science, getting a quarter of its funding from the union, amounting to £967 million in funding last year • Investments are indirect but clash with college’s cancer research alone. This is about 16% of the EU’s total research grant budget. efforts In the last decade, British research facilities have received just over • Made indirectly via three equity funds £8 billion from the EU, coming in second to Germany. Since 2009, the UK has got back around 7% his week FELIX revealed show that although Imperial was and the fact that eighteen different Imperial is investing just over of its EU subs from such funding. that the college has not investing directly in any tobacco Imperial departments form part of £18 million across three investment The EU pays for 41% of the UK’s significant investments firms, three funds it was paying Imperial’s cancer network, aiming funds that have holdings in the publicly funded cancer research and in several tobacco firms, significant amounts of money into to research and cure the disease. tobacco industry, and those are just 62% of its nanotechnology funding, as part of its endowment portfolio. did have tobacco firms in their top The firms we’re indirectlythe ones who were open with where both of which have significant bases TOverall, Imperial has invested just ten holdings. investing in include Imperial their money goes. FELIX looked at Imperial. under £2.4 million across several This is somewhat surprising Brands, who make Camel cigarettes, at the percentage these funds were Unlike Germany, however, we tobacco firms, via several equity and considering Imperial’s long term British American, who produce investing in tobacco to work out only spend 1.63% of our gross hedge funds. partnership with Cancer Research Lucky Strikes, and Philip Morris, how much of our cash has gone to domestic product on research, Our findings, made via a UK, the college’s substantial research who manufacture the world’s most the controversial corporations. whereas Germany... Freedom of Information request, department dedicated to lung cancer smoked cigarette – Malboros. continued on page 6 continued on page 5 th PAGE 2 THE STUDENT NEWSPAPER OF IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON FRIDAY 27 MAY 2016 felixonline.co.uk [email protected] Contents A word from the Editor News 3 Editor-in-Chief Grace Rahman Features 7 News Editor Matt Johnston Comment 8 he Imperial endowment into cancer treatment, investing isn’t much of a secret, nearly £2.4 million in an industry Comment Editors Science 12 and even to a Corbyn that thrives on the fact that their Tessa Davey and Vivien Hadlow sympathiser like me, product is addictive, with the added Science Editors Music 17 investing it seems like a sensible benefit of killing its customers Jane Courtnell and Lef Apostolakis thing to do with a huge pot of slowly, seems truly perverse. T Arts Editors Games 18 cash – I mean, even I have an ISA, Ooh, FELIX supports a nanny although I don’t know what that state! No, friends. I tried a menthol Indira Mallik, Jingjie Cheng and Max Falkenberg Film 21 means or does. When we spent once, you know (it was fucking hours going through Imperial’s grim). People like cigarettes and the Music and Games Editor Arts 22 endowment funds this week, we tobacco industry sells them, so it’s a Cale Tilford expected to see a standard number safe place to invest. But just because Film Editor TV 25 of shady companies. Imperial has we can, does it mean we should? Fred Fyles links to arms, oil and nuclear firms Ethical investing is easily done these Puzzles 28 – we all know this. We have courses days. If FELIX was able to find how Puzzles Editors sponsored by Shell, lecture theatres much each investment fund had bet Hamish Beck and Roxana Radu Hangman 31 brought to you by Rolls Royce, and on the tobacco industry, presumably Food Editor more BAE-bound graduates than, it would be quite easy for the AXA have divested from tobacco Sanjay Bhattacharya Food 32 well, than you’d hope. endowment board at Imperial products. It can be done. We should Bombs, arguably, are quite bad. In (which is dedicated to deciding the expect better of our institution, Clubs & Societies Editor Abi de Bruin the 'right' hands, they’re excusable, destination of these funds) to do the which prides itself on teaching FELIX, Beit Quad, or at least a deterrent, and since we same. £2.4 million is only a small students logic, science and evidence- TV Editor Prince Consort Road, pump so many students into the fraction of our entire fund, but what based thinking, to stop funding the Saad Ahmed London SW7 2BB arms industry, it’s unsurprising that if it's made up of your fees? tobacco industry with one arm and Tel: 020 7594 8072 Technical Babe we pump a little cash into it too. But Pension funds, universities and attempting to cure lung cancer with Luke Granger-Brown Printed by Iliffee Print Cambridge, considering our substantial research most recently the health insurer the other. Winship Road, Cambridge Copy Editors Registered Newspaper Mattin Mir-Tahmasebi and Ahmed ISSN 1040-0711 Ibrahim Copyright © FELIX 2016 A letter complaining about the UK student loans company has gone viral graduate who was they were still at school. at 0.9%. Once you earn enough to shocked to find his He compared the astronomical start repayments, the interest rate student loan had interest rates, which have been can rise up to 3.9% if you’re earning accumulated £1800 retroactively increased since the £41,000 or more. worth of interest just a year after 2012 cohort signed their contracts Students who started university leavingA university has written a with the Student Loans Company, before 2012, have their interest rates letter to his MP, which has now to those of personal loans and set at 0.9% “until further notice” gone viral. mortgages. Currently, the 3.9% according to the Student Loans Simon Crowther, who graduated interest he and thousands of others Company. last year from Nottingham with a are paying is far higher than the Last November, the government degree in civil engineering, opened rates on standard personal loans or announced that it would be freezing a letter from the Student Loans mortgages. the repayment threshold of £21,000 Company last weekend and was In the letter, Crowther said that a year rather than increasing that amazed to find that his £40,000 he felt “cheated” and complained figure with inflation, meaning low debt from fees and maintenance that he and others students in his and middle earners will pay back loans during his three year degree year had “trusted the government more. Martin Lewis, the founder had accrued £180 worth of interest that the interest rate would remain of moneysavingexpert.com, who per month. low – at around 0%-0.5%”. was on the government’s board for Crowther, who has started a social However, even during his degree, student finance in 2011, announced media business since graduating, the interest was 3% plus inflation. at the end of last year that he was said in the letter that him and his Students don’t have to start paying independently hiring a team of friends had not known what they back their loans until they start lawyers to investigate these changes. were signing up for when they had earning over £21,000, but during agreed to the loan repayments while this time interest is being added GRACE RAHMAN Fair. Photo Credit: FELIX felixonline.co.uk FRIDAY 27th MAY 2016 PAGE 3 NEWS [email protected] Imperial places 7th in the Guardian’s league table We’re up a place, but behind Loughborough and Durham Grace Rahman Editor-in-Chief much money is spent per student, employment prospects, student staff ratio, entry demands and mperial has placed seventh in student satisfaction, with several the Guardian’s league table of of these factors extrapolated from British universities, coming the National Student Survey. The behind Durham, Surrey and combination of these gave Imperial Loughborough. a score of 84.4 out of 100. IImperial usually takes third place Durham beat us by only half a in league tables of UK universities point to come in at sixth, and Surrey but in this league table, St Andrews and Loughborough (joint fourth) comes straight in after Cambridge both had scores of 85. and Oxford. The Guardian’s data for Imperial The Guardian’s league table student satisfaction with both doesn’t factor research scores into teaching and the course was its rankings because, according to relatively high, but our score for them, “they are not important to satisfaction with feedback was very students”.