Yale University has defended receiving millions of dollars from a Russia-linked billionaire with ties to the country’s oligarchs.
The Ivy League school has copped criticism from members of its own faculty for accepting funds from billionaire Len Blavatnik—who has close relationships with Russian oligarchs Victor Vekselberg and Oleg Deripaska, both of whom have been sanctioned by the U.S. government.
Blavatnik, who was born in Odessa in what was then the Soviet republic of Ukraine and is now a U.S. and a U.K. citizen, made his wealth from the sale of state-owned aluminum and oil assets following the collapse of the Soviet Union. He has helped fund the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation, as well as the Blavatnik Fellowship, at Yale since the fund was first established in 2016 with a grant of $10 million.
Aaron Ring, an assistant professor of immunology at the Yale School of Medicine, is a former recipient of a monetary award from the Blavatnik Fund. In a series of tweets last week, Ring called on Yale to suspend or cancel the Blavatnik Fund and said he now regrets receiving money through the Blavatnik Family Foundation.
“Today I asked the Yale administration to suspend or cancel the Blavatnik Fund for Innovation at Yale in response to Russia’s wanton attack on Ukraine. Despite his insistence otherwise, Len Blavatnik is an oligarch whose fortune came through his close ties to the Kremlin,” he said. “I have joined hundreds of leaders in biotech in a letter pledging to reject all investment and collaboration from Russian companies/funds and the industrial leaders who enable and embolden Putin. I urge my peers to add their voice to this call.”
“I regret my previous applications to this award. At the time, I was ignorant of the source of Blavatnik’s wealth. This is not an excuse and I will no longer rely on the university to vet donors that support our research,” he said.
Ring said that the money he received came with terms including that Access Industries, a privately-held multinational industrial group founded by Blavatnik, would be granted significant investment control over new ventures.
Ring’s contract states that Access Industries would receive the right to invest funds in award recipients’ ventures equal to any amount committed by any lead investor.
Ring says when he asked for the provision to be taken out of his contract, he was denied by Yale.
Yale spokesperson Karen Peart told The Daily Beast it was part of the university’s mission to “accelerate the translation of scientific discoveries into products and services for the greater good of society.”
“Toward that end, Yale secures support from a variety of sources, including the federal government, individuals, corporations, and private foundations. This is standard practice among our peer research universities,” she said. “Research funding from Leonard Blavatnik to Yale has over the years opened new paths of scientific inquiry and sped efforts to bring resulting discovery to beneficial use.”
In a statement last week, Yale President Peter Salovey said that the university would respect all U.S. government sanctions applicable to Russia and continue to monitor sanctions imposed by other countries.
“We will not allow individuals subject to U.S. sanctions to make donations to the university or serve on university boards or committees,” he said.
Blavatnik has also donated millions of dollars to Harvard, giving the university $200 million for its medical school in 2018 alone.
Peart said that many sponsored-research agreements at Yale give donors non-exclusive opportunities to invest in companies that might spin out from the research resulting from the relevant grants.
“Of the 33 spinoffs that have received investment, one has received funding from Access,” she said. “In less than five years, the fund’s projects have resulted in 12 spinoff companies with $108 million in total outside funding.”
In a statement to the Yale Daily News, Access Industries denied any improper role in partnering with the university.
“Access has no control over the Yale scientific initiatives selected for support by the fund’s advisory board, comprised for the most part by life science-oriented investors who are Yale alumni. Also, the fund is run independently by Yale’s Office of Cooperative Research,” the company said.
Last week, Yale announced that it was cutting ties with the Sackler family, whose company Purdue Pharma has endowed two professorships and a program in the sciences at the university, over its role in the opioid epidemic.
The Blavatnik Family Foundation did not respond to The Daily Beast’s request for comment.