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Can we interest you in any missile components today?

Added on 17/03/2008

Student protests across the country are putting pressure on top universities to reconsider their investment portfolios. Eleanor Paton reports...

Students across the UK have been campaigning against universities’ financial investments in the arms trade. Protesters campaigned at many Russell Group universities, including University College London.
At UCL students dressed up as arms dealers and sold fake weapons in the main quad. This was to draw attention to the £800,000 of shares that the university has in Cobham Plc, who develop and support defense systems. The protests were organised by Campaign Against the Arms Trade (CAAT) along with the student pressure group People and Planet. CAAT is a broad coalition of groups and individuals in the UK that aims to end the international arms trade.

Universities invest in the arms trade for a variety of reasons. Firstly, the increase in defence budgets since the ‘war on terror’ has meant more business for the arms companies, causing their share prices to have risen. Simultaneously the funding problems in education mean that universities feel the pressing need to make money through investments.
Secondly, the top universities in the UK receive funding for research from arms companies so the relationship between the university and the arms company becomes a two-way one. Thirdly, to invest in the arms trade is in fact common practice for higher education institutions – there are currently 45 universities in the UK that do so; therefore the investment seems vindicated because it is a part of the status quo.
In addition to this some universities relinquish the control of their investments to another party, thus distancing themselves from ethical responsibility. Durham’s own endowment funds are invested in a pooled fund. The treasurer’s section of the university explained: “The nature of such a fund is that we do not invest directly in companies and we have not received any information giving details of the number of shares held by the fund in which we are invested. The UK equity fund in which we invest is managed by JP Morgan Fleming and is known as the Fledgling UK Equity fund.”

These protests last week formed a part of the wider University Clean Investment Campaign, run by CAAT, which seeks to “alert students and staff to the investment decisions which are being made by the financial officers of their colleges and universities; give them the tools so that they can hold them to account; and help break the links between arms companies and higher education.”

The campaign emphasises the value of ethical investment, stressing that it too can be economically viable. CAAT argues that ethical investment funds that exclude arms company shares are some of the most profitable. In the last ten years the Church of England’s £4.3 billion ethically managed fund was the second best performer out of more than 1,000 funds.

The University Clean Investment Campaign began in 2005 after a national study showed that 45 per cent of the institutions for which the information could be acquired were significant investors in the arms trade. The campaign seemed was predicted to be an uphill struggle, with fears that campus protest regarding universities’ investments in the arms trade would be suppressed. For instance Lancaster University prosecuted six students who protested peacefully at a “corporate venturing” conference which was promoting commercial links between the university's research and arms company BAE Systems. However since its establishment the campaign has had some successes, including The School of Oriental and African Studies and Goldsmiths University of London who sold their arms investments.

Due to student pressure St. Andrews has adopted an ethical investment policy and Manchester University has sold many of its shares in BAE systems and Rolls Royce. In addition to this student unions across the country have passed ethical investment motions suggesting that students resent the link between their institutions and the arms trade.

Eleanor Paton

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