Email sent to members on Monday 3rd August 2026.
As part of our campaign to defend jobs and working conditions at the University of Nottingham, we will be sending regular emails, authored by different UCU members, examining key elements of management’s restructuring plans. Today we discuss UoN’s membership in the Defence Universities Alliance. Feel free to share this post with non-UCU members in your area.
Defence Research as a way out of crisis?
On Monday, 13 July Tom Rodden, Pro Vice Chancellor for Research, proudly announced that UoN had become a founding member of the Defence Universities Alliance (DUA). ‘The alliance will strengthen collaboration between universities, government, the armed forces and industry in support of UK defence and national security objectives’ (UoN, 13 July 2026). A £182 million defence skills package is purported to generate high-quality defence research as well as graduates interested in pursuing a career in the arms manufacturing industry. Is this the most constructive way forward for a university which finds itself in its most severe, self-inflicted crisis around Future Nottingham restructuring?
Under Article 1 of the DUA charter, members “will commit to actively growing research and development activity and capacity in defence and national security relevant fields to support defence aims and objectives” (DUA Charter). Article 2 of the charter obliges members to promote defence industry-related careers within their institutions and to support “defence skills requirements” (DUA Charter). Article 3 commits members to supporting a host of collaborative undertakings with the “wider Defence community” and other DUA members (DUA Charter).
What could UoN’s contribution look like? We are told that ‘an example of the impact of dual-use technologies is a partnership with the Ministry of Defence, which is exploring how the world’s first mobile quantum brain scanner, developed at the University of Nottingham, can measure the effects of blast exposure on military personnel in real time at training sites’ (UoN, 13 July 2023). How wonderful! How about exploring ways of avoiding anyone being exposed to bomb blasts in the first place?
Military related research is highly problematic for a number of reasons. First, it produces no use value. The resulting commodities are for deterrence at best but – especially in the case of a country like the United Kingdom, which is almost constantly involved in military adventures abroad – are ultimately the means by which to kill people. Second, arms manufacturing and the military are some of the biggest global polluters. ‘It is estimated that the military sector (including industries that produce equipment and weapons) is one of the largest sources of emissions, producing 5.5.% of total global emissions’ (CEDARE 2025). Unsurprisingly the US military, with which the United Kingdom has a notoriously toxic romance, is especially problematic (Martin, Earth’s Greatest Enemy, 2025). Third, arms manufacturing draws on resources desperately needed to confront the real problems of our time including a crumbling National Health Service and an underfunded education system.
In their May 2026 official statement on the DUA, Demilitarise Education (dED) spells out four major ways the Alliance represents a threat to academic freedom. This is by:
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- Redirecting research priorities away from addressing pressing social, environmental, and humanitarian challenges toward military applications;
- Compromising institutional independence by making universities dependent on arms/military funding and strategic alignment;
- Military career pathways prioritised through UCAS-linked partnerships and £182 million for Defence Technical Excellence Colleges, creating institutional pressure to align with military priorities (Press release here);
- Creating ethical conflicts for researchers and students whose values oppose war and militarisation.
In short, increased defence research money is not an opportunity for Higher Education. It comes on the heels of widespread financial difficulties across the sector (Universities UK, 25 February 2026) as well as cuts to research funding (BBC, 9 July 2026), re-directing efforts away from more productive areas.
It is often argued that the new security environment would leave us with no alternative but to strengthen our defences. In June 2026, then UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer declared that Russia could attack us as soon as in four years’ time (Euronews, 5 June 2026). Considering that Russia has over the last four years unsuccessfully attempted to win a war against the comparatively small Ukraine, such assessments look rather far-fetched. Instead, a threat is being artificially manufactured in order to justify increased defence spending in the interest of arms manufacturers’ profits. Where is the critical research at UoN analysing this ‘manufacturing of insecurity’?
The announcement of the University of Nottingham’s participation in the DUA is combined with assurances that defence research is controlled by ‘rigorous ethical oversight’. ‘The University of Nottingham has robust governance and policies which ensure that defence and dual-use research at Nottingham is conducted in a way that aligns with university values and upholds the highest standards of integrity’ (UoN, 13 June 2026). When challenged by trade union representatives on what this would mean in practice, we were told that the university would of course not cooperate with actors like the Iranian Revolutionary Guard. How reassuring! And this, when we know how deeply UoN is complicit in Israel’s genocide of the Palestinian people through its research contracts with arms manufacturers, its cooperation with Israeli universities and its investment in corporations, which deal with Israel (NCLP 2024). Support of, and collaboration in, genocide are apparently part of these oh so special values which this institution upholds.
In short, membership in the DUA is nothing to celebrate. It is an unethical, shameful, and desperate decision by a management that sends our university stumbling from one crisis into the next. As Demilitarise Education states, “at a time when devastating conflicts continue across Congo, Sudan, Ukraine, Palestine and beyond, universities should not deepen their entanglement with industries that profit from violence, displacement, occupation and human suffering. The DUA is being presented as a neutral partnership for innovation and skills development. We reject this framing.” (Demilitarise Education Official Statement on the DUA).
On behalf of the Branch Committee