The Campaign for Accountability, which runs the Google Transparency Project in an effort to help track the policy moves of the edge giant, has created a database of research grants awarded by the company to academic researchers.
Google freely discloses those relationships, but the project has compiled them in a database it said is easier to access.
The Transparency Project has been looking at those academic connections for some time, releasing a report (and database) on the academics who wrote about public policy issues--antitrust, copyright, privacy--but that did not include grants to computer scientists and others, who it argues sometimes also "go to bat" for the company. They say the new database includes those as well.
“Google relies on company-funded academics to support its policy agenda," said CFA executive director Daniel Stevens. [This] new database provides a complete accounting of Google’s efforts to support a wide array of academics including researchers in seemingly apolitical disciplines."
