Arms firms that give Sheffield more than any other unit

A new staff report from the University of Sheffield has revealed that the institution receives more money from arms companies than any other university in the UK.

The report, entitled The Genocide and Apartheid Complicity Report, published on Wednesday by the Sheffield Campus Coalition for Palestine (SCCP) estimates that the university conducts tens, if not hundreds of millions, of pounds worth of weapons-related research.

The report also found that the university allows defense companies to use taxpayers to fund up to 95 percent of their research and development costs.

In the report, staff highlight that the university’s engineering department took £72m from arms companies such as Boeing, Airbus, Rolls Royce and BAE Systems between 2012 and 2022, which they say is more than any other UK university.

One of the biggest points of concern for the SCCP is the involvement of companies in the production of critical parts in weapons and warplanes sent to Israel and used to target Palestinian civilians.

The report coincided with the 76th anniversary of the Palestinian Nakba, or Catastrophe, and Israel’s ongoing war in Gaza, which has killed at least 35,200 Palestinians and injured another 79,000.

The ferocious bombardment of the besieged enclave has plunged it into a deep humanitarian crisis, destroying entire neighborhoods and devastating infrastructure and medical facilities, while causing widespread starvation.

“The University of Sheffield hosts nuclear weapons designers at the Advanced Manufacturing Research Center and allows arms companies to direct the institution’s strategic and teaching objectives through membership of the department’s advisory boards, without transparent ethical manufacturers,” the report said.

“The authors want to engage with the campus and local communities, generate meaningful commitment from all stakeholders, and develop a viable plan to transition our university away from reliance on gun funding…” he added.

Students launch a 12-hour session

The report was published on the same day that students launched a 12-hour sit-in at Diamond, one of the main buildings of the university’s engineering departments.

It comes two weeks after students launched a protest camp to demand an end to all ties with Israeli companies.

Betty, a postgraduate research student, said The new Arab the students launched the sit-in from a “position of deep pain to demand the university’s withdrawal from the Israeli apartheid regime”.

“We will not be silenced and we will not go away, normal business cannot be allowed to resume when that business is complicity and supplies stained with blood or weapons for those who commit war crimes,” she said.

Betty called the situation a “fundamental moral issue of our age”, saying she “refuses to share mass murder, including the families of our friends and colleagues here in Sheffield, with our conscience”.

Another student from the site called it a symbolic action.

“…When we are in this space, we present a liberated education that is not shaped by gun representatives on industrial advisory boards or by research priorities set by dirty money,” the SCCP student member said in a statement.

The SCCP has also accused the university management of failing to engage with the student protesters, who they say have failed to respond to their concerns.

The coalition added that this was part of a wider pattern of behavior by university management throughout the year, including ignoring emails, petitions and student protests since October.

A statement from the coalition said they sent a letter to the leadership with more than 12,000 signatures calling for the removal of Zecharia Deustch, an associate chaplain at the university who traveled to Israel to serve as a reservist in the Israeli army.

Universities around the world have launched protest camps to demand the divestment of Israel-related companies and partnerships.

The protests first began at Columbia University in the US on April 17 and have since spread to Mexico, Australia, Greece and France, among other countries.