The Centre for Social Cohesion has released a new report (PDF) on how a number of British universities have received donations from dictatorial regimes. A range of universities including the LSE, Oxford, Cambridge, Edinburgh, Durham and Exeter have accepted significant donations, directly and indirectly, from extremist dicatorships. The total accepted is many millions of pounds.
The reason why these regimes fund British universities is that they want to take advantage of their reputation and established facilities. We all have a stake in how those assets are used, as they have been built up over generations by money from British donors and taxpayers and the talents of British students and academics. The report provides evidence that donations from dictatorships bias academic research and undermine academic freedom. University administrators have no right to run the institutions they have been entrusted with safeguarding in such a way that the reputation that has attracted foreign donors to support British universities is undermined.