Who is Schlumberger? The World’s Biggest Oil Services Company funding Cambridge University

XR protests outside Senate House in February. Photo by Lily Isaacs

The University of Cambridge has drawn criticism in recent months for its continuing relationship with oil services company Schlumberger (SLB). 

In particular, this relationship has been the subject of an ongoing campaign by Extinction Rebellion (XR) Cambridge, who are calling for the University to “cut all ties” with SLB. The group are arguing that the University should do this by ending “all ongoing financial relationships” with the company, ending “the research agreements and partnerships” with them, and closing “the revolving door, which sees students encouraged to take internships and jobs with” SLB. 

As part of their campaigning against the University’s relationship with SLB, XR Cambridge formed a blockade outside Schlumberger’s research centre on the West Cambridge site, the Schlumberger Gould Research Centre, in October last year. During this blockade, XR erected an Alice in Wonderland teapot to represent how SLB has not recognised the reality of the climate crisis, instead opting to “live in wonderland”. Earlier this month, campaigners from XR let off smoke flares from a balcony on the Department of Engineering to further draw attention to the issue. 

More recently, you may have seen the two student mannequins on King’s Parade, representing the university and the company holding hands, with hundreds of graduating students signing the table the mannequins sit behind.

So, who are SLB? 

The company is the world’s largest oil services company, providing technologies and services to the oil and gas industry. Not only is it, therefore, a key player in an industry perpetuating the climate crisis, but SLB has also been involved in a number of controversies.

Last October, it was reported that the company was not enabling its Russian employees to work remotely so that they could avoid mobilisation, after many members of their staff received military draft notices through work. 

The company also drew criticism in 2020, when a class action lawsuit was filed against it. This claimed that Schlumberger turns “a blind eye to the pattern of sexual harassment, sex (gender) discrimination, and physical danger that women are subjected to” when working for it. Five years earlier, SLB was fined almost £200 million for violating American government sanctions by facilitating trade with Iran and Sudan. 

Despite its poor practices, SLB enjoys close relationships with Cambridge, which XR claim “are some of the most extensive in higher education globally”. 

With agreement from the University in 1982, the company opened a research centre on the West Cambridge site, the lease for which does not end until 2053. According to SLB’s website in 2017, this centre – named the Schlumberger Gould Research Centre since 2012 – houses “multidisciplinary research teams of more than 100 scientists and technicians,” including a “drilling department” which aims “to develop an understanding of the drilling system as a whole, from which novel drilling techniques can be developed to improve safety, consistency, and our capability to economically access increasingly difficult-to-reach reserves”.

“The Centre benefits from strong collaborative links with Cambridge University to drive innovation and support its long-term vision,” continued the website post.

Mysteriously, the company’s website no longer includes this page detailing the Centre’s activities and its strong collaborative links with the University. 

A protest on King’s Parade on graduation. Photo by Lily Isaacs

Alongside its West Cambridge site research centre, SLB has funded a professorship at the University, as well as a number of scholarships and fellowships. 

In 1998, the company provided a donation to the University, resulting in the establishment of the Schlumberger Professorship of Complex Physical Systems in the Department of Applied Mathematics and Theoretical Physics. This position has been held by Professor Raymond Goldstein, a fellow at Churchill College, since 2006. 

Speaking to TCS, Goldstein explained the nature of his position’s funding: “[Schlumberger’s] donation consisted of an endowment and additional research funds (known as ‘start-up’ funds) for the first holder of the chair.” 

“As with all such arrangements in the University, the donation becomes part of the University’s endowment, and the investment income from it funds the salary of the holder of the chair going forward. Schlumberger has not made any further payments to the university for this position – I receive no direct funding from Schlumberger,” Goldstein stated.

He stressed that the company “has absolute[ly] no role in [his] choice of research topics” and “has never sought to exert any influence over [his] research”. His work principally concerns “problems of human development, health, and disease”.  

While Schlumberger do not directly fund Goldstein’s professorship and do not influence his work, XR have claimed that the position nevertheless “sanitises Schlumberger’s reputation”.  

The company has also funded ‘Faculty for the Future’ fellowships for PhD students and post-doctoral researchers at a number of universities. In 2019, there were 39 people on this program at Cambridge, more than at any other university. In the UK, Nottingham accepted the second most ‘Faculty for the Future’ fellows, with 15. 

As well as this, the Cambridge Trust, which provides scholarships to those undertaking postgraduate study at the University, lists the Schlumberger Gould Research Centre as one of its partners. It has previously funded scholarships in partnership with the research centre, although these are not currently being advertised by the Trust. 

A representative for XR Cambridge, Peach Hoyle, stated that these scholarships are “concerning” and that “the process by which these projects get funded is pretty opaque”. They said that the “Cambridge Trust are ‘unsure’ of whether the Schlumberger Scholarships will be returning for the 2023/4 academic year.”

SLB also help fund five Centres for Doctoral Training (CDTs) in Cambridge, which are PhD research programmes. Hoyle suggested that the “CDT funding is… transparently about corporate business aims – greenwashing of course, but recruitment and research as well”. 

Hoyle said we should not ignore the university’s ties with SLB: “We know that connections with the University provide academic legitimacy to a company that's destroying the planet.”

“In addition, their presence on campus allows them to build academic connections and recruit students to work for them, despite their business model being totally incompatible with the university's own climate commitments…when it comes to research funding it's absurd to suggest that companies don't direct the research topics! That's how funding works.”

So, how can students campaign against SLB?

Peach says: “there are so many ways students can resist fossil fuel funding connections - from speaking with supervisors (and asking them to support votes in Regent House!), getting involved in creative actions like CCJ's recent exposure of a fossil fuel lobbying meeting, or taking direct action like blockading Schlumberger's building, which we have done several times in the Schlumberger Out campaign.”

The University declined to comment on this article.