Writer: Marija Jovcheski
Editor: Sophie Rogers
In 2026, University College London will celebrate its bicentenary with a year of events highlighting two centuries of “groundbreaking work and people.” Yet as UCL curates this narrative, it continues financial, research, and governance relationships with arms companies whose weapons are used in wars and military occupations — including the ongoing assault on Palestine. These ties link UCL’s research, investments, and prestige to a global military-industrial system that profits from civilian destruction and the collapse of healthcare. This contradiction matters not only for what UCL celebrates, but for what it enables.
Palestine and the destruction of healthcare
The occupied Palestinian territory exposes the human cost of militarised “global impact.” Decades of occupation and blockade have fragmented healthcare, restricted movement, and created chronic shortages of medicines, electricity, and equipment. Since October 2023, organisations such as Médecins Sans Frontières have documented hundreds of attacks on hospitals and medical workers in Gaza and the West Bank — facilities bombed, ambulances fired upon, patients dying at checkpoints, staff detained or killed.
Healthcare is not collateral damage but a central target: disabling hospitals and emergency systems turns treatable injuries into death sentences. Meanwhile, these events are converted into datasets and case studies within global health research, often without addressing the political structures — occupation, siege, and impunity — that sustain such violence. Physical harm is mirrored by epistemic harm, as Palestinian suffering is analysed while its causes remain untouched.
Extraction and responsibility in global medicine
This pattern reflects long-standing critiques of global health. Clinical trials and epidemiological research are often conducted in low- and middle-income countries under the banner of “partnership,” while risk is borne by populations with weaker health systems and fewer protections. Universities and corporations in the Global North retain the gains: publications, patents, and prestige.
Debates around HIV prevention trials in Africa exposed how weak ethical standards let sponsors exploit inequality. The question became whether participants gained lasting access to proven interventions or were left with nothing once researchers departed. Gaza, though not a conventional “research site,” shows a similar logic: while its healthcare is systematically destroyed, international bodies extract data, expertise, and moral authority from the crisis. When universities embedded in arms-linked industries celebrate their “impact” in global medicine, solidarity becomes extraction.
UCL’s arms industry ties
UCL’s connections to arms manufacturers are well documented. In 2019, Pi Media revealed that its Centre for Ethics & Law received around £10,000 a year from BAE Systems, one of the world’s largest weapons producers. A Freedom of Information request showed that between 2010 and 2015 UCL received £3.6 million in grants from arms companies including BAE Systems, Lockheed Martin, and QinetiQ.
These relationships did not end cleanly. openDemocracy later reported that BAE donated almost £50,000 to the same centre between 2017 and 2021, while a company representative continued to sit on its advisory board — a position that influences research agendas and institutional priorities. Student journalists have identified similar links across UCL: staff from BAE Systems and Leonardo help steer engineering curricula and research, embedding the military-industrial complex within the university’s governance and career networks. This is the academic side of the military‑industrial complex: a revolving door between university labs, corporate weapons manufacturers, and state militaries.
Investments and indirect profit
UCL’s entanglements extend beyond research. Cheesegrater Magazine reported that the university invests around £1.5 million in HSBC, a bank criticised for holding shares in arms manufacturers including BAE Systems and Raytheon. Weapons from these firms have been used by Israeli forces in Gaza and the Saudi-led coalition in Yemen. As HSBC profits from its arms holdings, UCL profits indirectly, despite its “ethical” investment policy. Such policies risk becoming branding exercises rather than mechanisms of accountability.
Research for war
UCL also conducts research for military purposes. An Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council-funded project, “Signal Sensing, Design and Delivery for Electronic Warfare,” led by UCL Engineering with Thales and the US Army Research Laboratory, focuses on sensing and signal-processing in contested electromagnetic environments — core capabilities for modern surveillance, drones, and combat systems. Thales, a major defence contractor, markets these technologies to NATO militaries. Even when framed as “dual-use,” integration into weaponry is structural, not accidental.
Contesting UCL’s future
Students and staff have repeatedly challenged these contradictions. A Students’ Union policy calls for an end to relationships with arms companies and for transparency across funding, investments, and partnerships. Trade unions and activist groups at UCL have likewise demanded divestment from firms implicated in human rights abuses and alignment with Palestinian civil society’s calls for boycott, divestment, and sanctions.
In this context, UCL’s bicentenary cannot be reduced to light shows and glossy narratives of global impact. Celebration without accountability risks denial. A just bicentenary requires concrete commitments: divestment from arms manufacturers and their financiers; an end to partnerships advancing weapons systems; material support for Palestinian healthcare; and teaching that confronts the university’s role in militarised knowledge production.
UCL’s legacy should not rest on the profits and prestige of war but on solidarity with those whose lives and hospitals are treated as expendable — nowhere more visibly than in Palestine.
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