Optica’s CEO, Elizabeth Rogan, and the executive director of the Optica Foundation, Chad Stark, have both stepped down after investigations into the charitable photonics organisation’s ties to Chinese technology company Huawei, which is blacklisted in the US.
Bloomberg reported in May that Huawei was anonymously funding a number of research grants via Optica’s charity arm, the Optica Foundation. Oklahoma congressman Frank Lucas, who is chairman of the US House of Representatives' Committee on Science, Space, and Technology (CSST), and Zoe Lofgren, a ranking member of the CSST, sent a letter to Rogan to express their concern.
Huawei sanctioned by US over spying concerns
Due to allegations that Huawei was tied to the Chinese military, and therefore in a position to spy for the Chinese government, the US has restricted technology exports, such as chips and semiconductors, to the company since 2019, when it was added to the US Commerce Department’s blacklist. Other countries to restrict the usage of Huawei equipment include the UK and Germany.
The Bloomberg report stated that although Huawei had been the sole source of funding for the Optica Foundation Challenge in 2022 and 2023, the origin of the funding was kept hidden.
“Accepting and anonymising funds from a sanctioned Chinese company is wholly inappropriate,” said Lucas and Lofgren, in a statement. “Congress has mandated disclosure of foreign support by institutions receiving federal funding,” read the letter sent to Optica. “By masking the source of the Optica Foundation Challenge funding, your organisation has compromised the ability of U.S. research institutions to comply with the law.”
“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,” read the letter.
In a statement to Bloomberg, Huawei said the reason its name was kept private as the funding source for the Optica Foundation Challenge was to avoid appearing promotional – and the company was listed amongst the ‘highest-level donors’ in the Optica Foundation’s 2023 annual report. However, the research competition attracts hundreds of proposals from scientists, including some at top US universities that have banned their researchers from working with Huawei.
Optica’s response to the report and letter
Rogan stated that the Huawei donation had passed a review by outside legal counsel, and won the approval of the Foundation’s board, stating: “We are completely transparent with the funding and support of the Foundation programs.” However, Optica has since announced it would return Huawei’s funding for the Foundation Challenge, including from previous years.
Optica has now named deputy executive director Elizabeth Nolan as its interim CEO. “We are encouraged that Optica is now taking decisive steps on this matter,” said Lucas and Lofgren.
In a statement on Optica’s website, Gerd Leuchs, Optica 2024 President, expressed the organisation's thanks to Rogan and Stark, and said that after evaluating the processes, controls and procedures of the Optica Foundation Challenge, “Optica is now executing necessary changes to ensure that it is best positioned for the future”.
He added: “It is important to share that in the course of the independent review of the Optica Foundation Challenge that the Board of Directors undertook, no violation of law was identified. However, based on the review, it was determined that not all of the agreed controls associated with the program were implemented, and there was a lack of transparency with the Optica Foundation Board. We regard these as serious issues, and we determined that a change in leadership is in the best interest of the organisation. The Board of Directors was thankful to have questions about this program brought to its attention.”
