Ethics, Scientists, Engineers and the Military - Ethical Engineering for International Development and Environmental Sustainability - page 342

total came directly from the government and the majority from private companies.
However, much of the apparently private funding was not in fact private, but from
the government through Ministry of Defence and other government agency R&D
contracts. The largest company funders were Rolls-Royce (at least £36.8 million)
and BAE Systems (10.6 million) (CAAT 2012 ). The total military R&D funding of
universities is believed to be about £200 million, though it is diffi cult to obtain
accurate information, and despite a number of studies, clear data on the extent of
military involvement in universities is not available (Parkinson 2012a ). This lack of
openness and transparency is one of the many problems associated with military
and military-funded research.
Many UK university websites have statements about the importance of openness
and corporate responsibility. However, not one of the 16 university vice chancellors
approached by Scientists for Global Responsibility accepted SGR's invitation to
'describe [their university's] … vision of the challenges and opportunities that they
faced in a commercialised environment' (Langley et al. 2008 ). Several of the senior
members approached expressed concerns about commercialisation and excessive
workloads, and many academics felt that the subject of military funding was 'too
diffi cult' to discuss 'publicly' though information had already been obtained through
Freedom of Information Act requests. Most universities provided only partial
information, omitted answers and took the permitted 20 days for subsequent res-
ponses, further indicating the lack of transparency (Langley et al. 2008 ).
There are also indications that the UK government is not being particularly open
about the extent of military funding for universities. For instance, two recent studies
both found average annual military funding per university of over £2 million
(Langley et al. 2008 ; Street and Beale 2007 ) and total funding of £56 million for 26
of them. This is signifi cantly greater than the government's admitted total military
funding to universities of £44 million in 2004 or an average of about £400,000 per
university. This is a signifi cant discrepancy even after correcting for a particularly
signifi cant 22-year military contract for Cranfi eld University. The fact that many of
the universities studied by Street and Beal had higher than average military funding
does not explain this discrepancy.
The major military funders BAE Systems, QinetiQ (former UK government
'defence' labs) and Rolls-Royce have also been unresponsive about their relation-
ships with universities, indicating that the reality is very different from their website
claims of openness and honesty about these relationships (Langley et al. 2008 ).
However, military research is increasingly dependent on university expertise, which
is funded by taxation, i.e. members of the public. This would seem to give an
entitlement to know how this expertise is being used (Langley et al. 2008 ).
The details of the types of available military funding have changed over time with
some initiatives closing and others starting up. The main military research funding
mechanisms include (1) joint grant schemes with UK research funding councils on
either an opt-in or opt-out basis, (2) large programmes run by Rolls-Royce and
QinetiQ and (3) joint government-industry schemes run in conjunction with Defence