Months after Oklahoma Congressman Frank Lucas and other members of the House Science Committee he chairs expressed concerns about the Optica Foundation receiving millions of dollars from the Chinese-based company, Huawei, their concerns have eased—somewhat.
It was in May when Rep. Lucas and Ranking member Zoe Lofgren of California sent a letter to Elizabeth Rogan, CEO of the Optica Foundation, expressing their concern over recent reporting that Optica has accepted millions of dollars from Huawei — a China-based company whose operations are restricted in the United States — to fund research prizes. The reporting found that Optica masked the fact that Huawei was a source of research grant funds, leaving grant recipients unaware of the origin of the money they received from Optica.
But last week, changes were made in Optica’s senior leadership following a board review of the Optica Foundation Challenge. The board’s decisions follow months of scrutiny by Science Committee leaders of Optica’s distribution of anonymized Huawei donations to recipients of prestigious research awards.
“We are encouraged that Optica is now taking decisive steps on this matter,” said Chairman Frank Lucas (R-OK) and Ranking Member Zoe Lofgren (D-CA).
The two explained they felt that Optica’s accepting and anonymizing funds from a sanctioned Chinese company was wholly inappropriate.
“International collaboration on sensitive research topics must be undertaken with the utmost risk awareness and transparency. China’s tactics will continue to evolve, and it is imperative that stakeholders in the public, private, and nonprofit sectors maintain the highest standards to meet the ever-changing threat environment.”
Three months ago in their letter to Rogan, CEO at Optica, they suggested she should have been fully aware of the sensitive nature of much of the research in the field of promoting optics research in the U.S.
“In fact, the importance of optics research may well be the reason Huawei has invested so much in its relationship with the Optica Foundation – it is one of only five ‘Lifetime Donors’ that, as of 2023, donated over $1 million to the Foundation, and it funded 10 grants totaling $1 million in 2023. In your statement to Bloomberg, you said ‘there is nothing unusual’ about donors who ‘prefer to remain anonymous, including U.S. donors.’ This ignores the circumstances that make the Optica Foundation’s decision deeply unusual in the context of our heightened national awareness of research security concerns.”
May 16, 2024: Committee Leaders Seek Answers Regarding Optica’s Use of Undisclosed Funds from Huawei to Back U.S. Research
