{"id":109336,"date":"2022-06-20T20:59:50","date_gmt":"2022-06-21T00:59:50","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/?p=109336"},"modified":"2022-06-20T21:18:14","modified_gmt":"2022-06-21T01:18:14","slug":"texas-am-fails-to-report-100-million-in-research-funds-from-russia-and-qatar-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.thecollegefix.com\/texas-am-fails-to-report-100-million-in-research-funds-from-russia-and-qatar-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Texas A&M fails to report $100 million in research funds from Russia and Qatar: report"},"content":{"rendered":"

Texas A&M has failed to report over $100 million in research funds it received from Russia and Qatar according to a report<\/a> by The Wall Street Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

The unreported funds were used to pay for research at the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station, which focuses on engineering and technology research on cybersecurity, nuclear nonproliferation and artificial intelligence.<\/p>\n

The report comes after the Department of Education found over $6.5 billion in unreported foreign gifts and grants in a report released<\/a> in October 2020.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe threat of improper foreign influence in higher education is real,\u201d said then-Education Secretary Betsy DeVos in a statement<\/a> following release of the report.<\/p>\n

According to Section 117 of the Higher Education Act of 1965, institutes of higher education are required to report, twice per year, any foreign gifts in excess of $250,000. But the Education Department found that America’s \u201clargest, wealthiest, and most sophisticated\u201d schools had failed to account for billions in foreign investment.<\/p>\n

The College Fix<\/em> followed up on this report and found that the University of Texas at Austin<\/a> had partnered with a Chinese institute later deemed a security risk by Department of Education, Stanford University<\/a> had accepted $58 million from Chinese interests while pushing a global human rights initiative, and the Massachusetts Institute of Technology<\/a> had partnered with a Russian Company that the Education Department classified as a security risk.<\/p>\n

That company, Skoltech, donated $4 million in unreported money to Texas A&M according to The<\/em> Wall Street Journal<\/em>.<\/p>\n

According to National Association of Scholars researcher Neetu Arnold, writing in the WSJ<\/em>:<\/p>\n

This wasn\u2019t the only deal with Skoltech at the time: Petroleum engineering professor John Killough secured an $8.7 million grant with Skoltech in 2013. Both deals were eventually canceled\u2014in 2016 and 2015, respectively\u2014and Mr. Killough said in an email that he received \u201csomewhat less than\u201d $3.2 million for the 2013 grant owing to the \u201cdevaluation of the ruble\u201d and premature cancellation because of \u201csanctions for the Crimean invasion.\u201d<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Arnold also found that the Texas A&M Engineering Experiment Station had eight contracts with entities in Qatar worth close to $100 million.<\/p>\n

The Education Department report highlighted two universities that failed to account for foreign funding of campuses in Doha, Qatar, which are in part funded by the Qatari government.<\/p>\n

According to Arnold, a spokeswoman for TEES said the program was exempt from the reporting requirements because it is \u201cnot a university or college.\u201d The spokeswoman falsely declared TEES is \u201cnot an intermediary and does not act on behalf of Texas A&M University.\u201d<\/p>\n

Arnold notes that Texas A&M and its branch campuses benefit from these contracts, and Qatar never would have offered the money if Texas A&M did not itself have a branch campus in Qatar.<\/p>\n

Further, Texas A&M officials were involved in the contracts authorizing the payments.<\/p>\n

“The evidence indicates that TEES and Texas A&M are essentially the same entity, at least for the purposes of Section 117 reporting,” she noted.<\/p>\n

MORE: Department of Education finds $6.5 billion in unreported foreign donations to U.S. colleges<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

IMAGE: Katherine Welles \/ Shutterstock<\/p>\n

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