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A new investigation shows the scale of investment from arms manufacturers in UK universities
UK universities have received at least £190 million in research funding from arms producing and military services companies since 2013, the Byline Intelligence Unit (BITE), working with Action on Armed Violence (AOAV) can reveal.
At the end of 2020, AOAV sent Freedom of Information (FOI) requests to 76 UK universities asking for the total amount of funding they had received since 2013 from 11 major arms manufacturers.
When responses were provided, the total funding over the eight-year period totalled £189,970,044 – raising questions about the nature of weaponised research in British higher education.
The companies in question were: BAE, Babcock, QinetiQ, Rolls-Royce, Serco, Cobham, Raytheon, Airbus, General Dynamics, Leonardo MW and Lockheed Martin. Not all these firms exclusively produce weaponry, but all appeared in the Stockholm International Peace Research Institute’s (SIPRI) 2018 list of the 100 top arms-producing and military services companies in the world (excluding China).
BITE and AOAV found that the top five universities receiving arms funding were Sheffield, King’s College London, Cambridge, Oxford and Imperial College.
This article was produced by the Byline Intelligence Team – a collaborative investigative project formed by Byline Times with The Citizens. If you would like to find out more about the Intelligence Team and how to fund its work, click on the button below.
Of the 76 universities contacted, 17 refused to give information on funding, including major centres of learning such as Bath, Bristol, Exeter, Nottingham and Southampton. These institutions cited a range of reasons preventing them from providing details such as the information was commercially sensitive, prohibited by the Official Secrets Act or that it would have been too costly to obtain.
Dundee, Greenwich and Sussex universities, while unable to provide totals or specific details on funding, admitted to receiving money from the arms companies mentioned. It is likely, therefore, that the figure of £190 million significantly underestimates the amount of money that has been funnelled into UK universities from weapons producers in recent years.
Only 11 of the universities contacted replied to FOI requests confirming that they had not received any funding from arms firms since 2013. These included Cardiff Met, Northumbria, St Andrews, Sunderland and the University of West London.
Of the institutions that revealed details about their funding, Sheffield University topped the list, receiving close to £47 million over eight years – with 72% of the total coming from Rolls-Royce alone. The university did not provide any specific details on any of the projects that had been funded.
King’s College London (KCL), was the next largest recipient of funding. This was mainly due to £39 million awarded by Serco Ltd to provide “academic service”’ to the Joint Services Command and Staff College (JSCSC) in Shrivenham – a British military academy which “trains the future commanders and staff officers of all three UK armed services and those from many countries around the world.”
The University of Cambridge received funds totalling close to £20 million over the time period, with Rolls-Royce once again providing the lion’s share.
Oxford University only provided information on funding received from three companies: Airbus, Lockheed Martin and Rolls-Royce. It would not provide exact figures for funding, instead providing brackets. Using midpoints of the funding brackets provided, BITE estimated the University received funds in the region of £19,400,200 from the three arms manufacturers mentioned. It was not clear why information was withheld for other firms.
Elsewhere, Imperial College London admitted to accepting more than £15 million in funding, while the University of Strathclyde and Manchester University took up £11,376,277 and £9,794,746 respectively. Eight other universities – Bangor, Chichester, Edinburgh, Lancaster, Portsmouth, Sheffield Hallam, Swansea and York – received more than £1 million since 2013.
The Funders
Rolls-Royce was by far the biggest funder of university projects, giving more than £107 million to 22 different UK institutions, and accounting for 56% of all funding recorded by BITE.
Serco Ltd. was the next biggest funder, providing over £39 million. The majority of this figure was given to KCL in relation to JSCSC.
BAE systems, the British arms and aerospace company, was the third largest