UK universities that aggressively targeted students and staff for showing support for Palestine have signed up to a new alliance with the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

UK universities that aggressively targeted students and staff for showing support for Palestine have signed up to a new alliance with the Ministry of Defence (MoD).

35 institutions have joined the Defence Universities Alliance, an initiative which is part of a £182m investment package and which hopes to “boost defence industry skills across the UK” and “support vital research into new defence technologies”.

Founding members will “strengthen connections between academia and the defence sector”, the government said, “helping to support a pipeline of skilled graduates into exciting careers, including cyber security, robotics, AI, aerospace engineering and advanced manufacturing”.

These members include King’s College London (KCL) and University College London (UCL), which combined have opened at least 50 disciplinary cases against staff and students who took part in pro-Palestine protest activity from October 2023 through to November 2025, according to a joint investigation by Al Jazeera and Liberty Investigates.

13 of the 26 people investigated by KCL were involved in the encampment protest at the university that started in May 2025. One student told Al Jazeera and Liberty Investigates that she was banned from campus after posting in a pro-Gaza WhatsApp group that she felt “sick” after finding out one of her lecturers had spent four years in the Israeli army.

A spokesperson for KCL told Al Jazeera and Liberty Investigates the university has a duty to investigate all complaints it receives “and we do this thoroughly and fairly”.

KCL is one of many UK universities to already have deep ties with the MoD and the defence industry, and participates in Hack 4 MoD, a university module that lets postgraduate students tackle live defence and security problems.

The British arms manufacturer BAE Systems also has extensive links with UK universities, including active strategic partnerships with Manchester, Strathclyde, Cranfield, Nottingham, and Southampton. All these institutions bar Southampton are members of DUA.

BAE manufactures vital components of F35 fighter jets, which are used extensively by Israel’s military to kill civilians and destroy civilian infrastructure in Gaza.

“The Defence Universities Alliance represents a dangerous escalation in the militarisation of education,” a spokesperson for Campaign Against the Arms Trade told Novara Media.

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