UK Higher Education is in crisis with around 90 universities making redundancies and department closures, thousands of jobs have been lost, threatening the sector’s international standing. Most of the losses are in the humanities, while STEM subjects are hardly affected, mainly because they can attract urgently needed income from non-academic stakeholders. However, this also opens the door to outside influence on academic study and research.
A 2024 joint report by Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) and Demilitarise Education (dED), ‘Weaponising Universities’, shows how one group of stakeholders, the Ministry of Defence (MoD) and arms manufacturers, bring military research programmes and values into universities. The Military-Industrial-Academic-Complex (MIAC) involves establishing arms industry-funded research on campus and dedicated research centres sponsored by the arms industry and/or the MoD.
Using Freedom of Information requests, dED has found that the MIAC is worth over £2.3 billion to UK universities. Research partnerships (funded by weapons-producing companies and/or government bodies) account for £1.2 billion of the total. These projects often involve companies like BAE Systems, Rolls-Royce or Qinetiq as industrial partners. Universities also collectively invest over £1 billion directly or indirectly (via third parties) to arms companies, as a way of ensuring a regular income.
Two key areas of research are highlighted: “Emerging and Disruptive Technologies” (EDTs), such as AI, autonomous systems, and hypersonic weapons, which are changing the nature of warfare; and “Militarized Environmental Technologies” (METs), that seek to reduce the environmental impact of military activities (such as aviation) but which also serve as a way to “greenwash” the unsustainable activities of war.
It is not only military research that occurs on campus, many universities together earn £47 million from awards provided by the defence industry for studentship, sponsored courses, graduate schemes careers fairs, etc. The MoD also offers various funding, scholarship and sponsorship schemes for the education of military personnel and their families.
64 universities have developed partnerships with arms producing companies of one kind or another, 24 of them worth over £10m. The University of Bristol has benefited the most with over £61 million worth of partnerships from 40 links. In the Yorkshire Region Sheffield Hallam University has arms company partnerships worth nearly £35 million from 7 links, the University of Sheffield has benefited from over £22 million from 6 direct links with arms companies (including nearly £11m from EPSRC for a ‘Future Electrical Machines Manufacturing Hub’ with GKN Ltd, Airbus and Roll-Royce). The University of Huddersfield is leading a £13.3 million ‘Future Advanced Metrology Hub’ and has worked previously with at least 3 arms companies, but further information is not forthcoming. The University of Leeds has 5 direct links with arms companies, providing over £8m in revenue, the University of York has received nearly £3m from links with 12 arms companies and the University of Hull has received £450,398 from 14 direct links. Even the smaller, less engineering-oriented universities such as Leeds Trinity (£420,000 from 4 links) and Leeds Beckett University (3117,679 from 3 links) have brought it income directly linked to arms companies. Leeds Arts University and the University of Bradford seem to be the only universities in the region to be free of military funding (so far).
There is a growing opposition to the militarisation of HE with students and staff at many universities calling for divestment from arms companies and ending the military presence on campus at events such as career fairs. In fact, Cardiff, Edinburgh, Liverpool, Manchester, Sheffield, and Warwick universities have stopped hosting defence companies.
Universities should be helping to build a diverse society that can question conformity and consider alternative views, rather than further company profits and/or political/military motives. However, as the government ramps up defence spending to 2.5% of GDP by 2027, with no extra funding for universities, there will be more pressure for universities to take on more military work.
Further Reading
Explained: The £1bn-plus deals between UK universities and the Arms Trade, by Jinsella, Declassified UK, 7 February 2023
