BP AT OXFORD

Is this some kind of insidious strategy, BP buying up brainpower all over the western world to do with it what it will? Jennifer Washburn, what have you got to say about this?

BP Ties Up With Oxford In Energy Research
April 18, 2007 (UPI)

WHO
British Petroleum (BP), Oxford University’s economics department and British Department for International Development chief economist/ London School of Economics professor of international economics Tony Venables
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WHAT
Forming Oxcarre, a $14 million joint research and analysis center.

WHEN
Operational with the opening of the academic year, Fall 2007; First research conference in late 2007

WHERE
Oxford, England

WHY
The value of developing information on energy resources cannot be overstated.

QUOTES
Venables: "I think this topic and the center offers an absolutely fantastic combination of intellectual challenge and practical policy challenge, ranging across wide areas of economics. Very importantly on the practical policy side, it is such an area of lost opportunity for many countries and such an area where I feel that economics can really make a difference. African exports have doubled over the past ten years, more than two thirds of that is natural resource exports. So getting this right is fundamentally important for Africa as it is to many other countries around the world…"