We are carrying out a consultation and members vote on avoidance criteria areas for SocRSE’s draft ethical sponsorship policy. Our aim is to represent the wishes of our membership into account for sponsorship, partnerships and receiving gifts. Please join the slack discussion in #ethical-sponsorship-policy.
Consultation timeline
Please see the Frequently Asked Questions below for more information.
Stages of consultation and votes
| Dates (2025-2026) | Stage | Status |
| 31st October – 25th November | Community survey for how to define a passing vote, and suggested areas for avoidance criteria | The survey is now closed, thank you for your input |
| 25th November – 8th December | Trustees summarise exclusion criteria and publish on this page | In progress |
| 8th December – 29th December | Community survey for arguments against avoidance criteria | Community survey for arguments against proposed areas (see below) is now open |
| 29th December – 19th January | Trustees summarise arguments against and publish on this page | |
| 19th January – 9th February | Membership votes on exclusion criteria |
Proposed areas for exclusion for community feedback
These are the combined results from the community survey to suggest areas for avoidance criteria. We will survey the community for arguments against these areas.
Note: These are the thoughts an opinions of specific community members and not those of SocRSE. We have aimed to be as transparent in the reasoning that people have given and included them for transparency.
| Area of exclusion | Details | Examples of organisations | Organisations not included |
| “Political Consulting” firms | Companies that leverage intrusive advertising strategies for political purposes (from either side of the spectrum). Including but not limited to unscrupulous data collection from social media and browsing habits. “Strategic communication” consultancies and companies that engage in these activities. | Cambridge Analytica Ltd, Emerdata Limited, SCL Group, AggregateIQ | |
| Defence and arms trade | RSECon and SocRSE aim to foster open, collaborative, and peaceful use of technology. Sponsorship from weapons manufacturers or military suppliers undermines that mission, risks alienating members, and associates the community with technologies designed for harm. Contractors whose primary revenue comes from nuclear warhead production, missile systems, or autonomous lethal weapon platforms. Subcontractors that primarily build software for military targeting, weapons guidance, or combat simulation systems.This includes indirect involvement, such as companies whose core business is supplying components or software specifically for weapon systems. | Major arms manufacturers and suppliers of weapon systems (e.g. AWE, BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman, Thales Group, General Dynamics). | Companies that do research that might benefit weapons design, but that are not directly designing or manufacturing weapons themselves |
| Fossil fuel | While many RSEs work on sustainability and climate science, accepting funding from companies whose primary activities contribute significantly to climate change would contradict the community’s commitment to sustainability and evidence-based policy. This exclusion should focus on primary producers rather than all energy firms (e.g. renewable energy or transition-focused research partners would remain eligible). | Primary producers like ExxonMobil, Shell, BP, Chevron, Gazprom, Peabody Energy — companies whose core business is fossil fuel extraction and expansion. Firms engaged in coal mining or heavy lobbying against climate science or renewable energy policy. | Octopus Energy, Ecotricity (trade in gas as energy wholesalers, but actively work towards renewably-generated electrification). Companies working exclusively in renewable energy |
| Tobacco | Smoking kills. | British American Tobacco | |
| “Big Tech” social media | Damage to mental health, allowing the spread of disinformation. Use of algorithms designed to keep users engaged and continue to consume content | Meta, X/Twitter, Tik Tok, Reddit | LinkedIn, BlueSky, Mastodon, Strava |
| Companies operating in the occupied Palestinian territories. | The Society should not accept money from companies operating on land illegally seized by force. We should be upholding the concept of international law. | Using wikipedia page as source of companies. Motorola is a potential sponsor listed here | |
| Companies in the BDS boycott for Palestine | “The inherent dignity and of the equal and inalienable rights of all members of the human family is the foundation of freedom, justice and peace in the world” – Preamble to the Universal Declaration of Human Rights There are many breaches of human rights ongoing in Palestine. The BDS boycott aims to put pressure on companies which are supporting those carrying out the breaches of human rights. | BDS boycott companies which includes basically every major tech firm (e.g. Microsoft, Intel, Cisco, Alphabet, HP, Amazon and Siemens) | |
| Political parties | UK charities must remain independent and not affiliated with a political party. This will also avoid being involved in parties advocating for anti-immigration, and RSEs tend to be international | All political parties | |
| Companies Involved in Human Rights Violations or Unethical Labour Practices | RSE values of inclusivity, equity, and fairness extend to how software and research infrastructure are built and maintained. Sponsorship from companies with poor human rights or labour records would conflict with these principles. Companies with a less than median score in any of the following organisation’s benchmarks: world benchmarking alliance social benchmarking score (current median is 4.5), ranking digital rights (current median is 38.5) or know the chain (current median is 19). Companies not listed will be searched along with human rights, if a reputable publication reports human rights abuses then they will also be excluded. If a company has been benchmarked by more than one organisation in our list then only the most recent benchmark from each organisation from the last 2 years will be taken into account. This aims to avoid a stale benchmark affecting a company in perpetuity. | Alphabet (social benchmarking score), Nvidia (know the chain), X (ranking digital rights), Amazon (ranking digital rights) | Current data would allow Dell, Meta, Intel, and Microsoft |
| Gambling | Contributes to societal harms and addiction | Paddypower, Betfair | |
| AI Hyperscalers | Business value built on theft, indifference to pollution and societal impact, threatening of world economy. Threatens impartiality of AI-related discussions within the community, which are absolutely essential at this time. If we accept funding there will be pressure for us to act such that it is not withdrawn | OpenAI, Microsoft and NVIDIA | Turing Institute (AI research, but not hyperscale or contributing (much) to huge negative impacts |
| Unethical reproductive practices | Because I do think that as scientists we have an ethical obligation to respect life and not just do whatever we want because we can, irregardless of the harm it may cause to the individuals caught up in the process. (May not be relevant for SocRSE sponsorship but feels important). | BioTexCom with commercial surrogacy clinics. | |
| Ultra-processed food industry | Industry that profits from addiction in the same way that tobacco, alcohol or gambling does. Bad for the fabric of our society and can cause harm to people | Nestle |
Frequently asked questions
Where can I find out more information about the process
We have created an interview with our trustees, Twin Karmakharm and Stef Piatek, that outlines the process, you can watch this on youtube. This covers many areas in this FAQ, we will update this page as more questions come in.
Please email [email protected] and see the next question on where you can discuss this.
Where can we discuss this?
Please join the discussion at #ethical-sponsorship-policy on our slack instance if you have any questions or feedback.
We are also encouraging regional RSE groups to host discussions after we have summarised the proposed avoidance criteria. The trustees will create talking points to help with this.
We expect everyone to follow our Code of Conduct as usual, and respect each other, even if you disagree.
Why do we need to vote on how to define a passing vote?
With a yes/no/abstain vote, an outright majority for contentious areas may be un-achievable.
We need to decide on whether “Yes” votes should have a lead over “No” votes to be counted as passing. We see “No” being actively against adding the item, whereas “Abstain” shows no preference. It would be useful to know what the community thinks is the lead required. These are some illustrative examples of times where we would need to know these thresholds assuming a 33% of Yes vote being the threshold:
- 35% Yes, 20% Abstain, 40% No
- 35% Yes, 30% Abstain, 35% No
- 35% Yes, 40% Abstain, 25% No
Why can’t I fill out a survey without giving an email address?
We want to be able to contact respondents to make sure that when we summarise all of the responses, that we are not misrepresenting their wishes. For this to work we’ll need to follow up in the week after the survey closes before publishing them on this page.
Why are the trustees summarising responses rather than reporting them as-is?
We expect people will respond with similar areas, and we will group and summarise them where we can. We need to know if this matches the intention of the proposer, or if they want their area to be voted on specifically.
Who can take part in each of the stages for this process?
For the two surveys, anyone in the RSE community can contribute. Only SocRSE members will be able to take part in the final vote.
Why is sponsorship so important?
Sponsorship at RSECon accounts for roughly half of the cost of the conference. We simply wouldn’t be able to run the conference without our sponsors.
What happens if I miss the deadline for one of the surveys or membership vote?
So that the RSECon26 organising committee can be sure of sponsors, we’ll have to stick to the timelines above. You can send an email to [email protected] to see what options you have.
After the policy has been voted in by the trustees of the Society, the ethical sponsorship avoidance criteria can be altered. More information is in the draft ethical sponsorship policy, members can bring requests for changes to an annual general meeting or extraordinary general meeting vote.