These are the combined results from the community survey to suggest areas for avoidance criteria. For the entire process, please see Avoidance criteria for ethical sponsorship
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 |