In a move that has ignited widespread criticism across UK higher education, the University of Birmingham has become the first major British university to roll back ethical restrictions on weapons industry investments, amid growing global scrutiny of commercial ties to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza, Middle East Eye can exclusively reveal.
The West Midlands-based institution has abandoned its 2022 responsible investment framework, which included formal exclusion criteria for arms firms and other high-polluting or harmful industries. Under the old policy, any company deriving more than 10% of its revenue from weapons system development, as well as all manufacturers of entire weapon systems, cluster munitions and anti-personnel landmines, were barred from the university’s investment portfolio. Tobacco, oil and mining companies were also excluded, with the university committing to minimize indirect investments in firms that failed to meet its ESG standards.
That policy has now been replaced with a softer set of so-called “investment principles”, adopted in June and obtained by Middle East Eye, that removes all formal exclusion lists. The new framework only requires that “financially material” environmental, social and governance (ESG) factors be integrated into investment selection, monitoring and stewardship processes. As part of the policy update, the university has also tapped global banking giant JP Morgan to serve as its outsourced chief investment officer (OCIO), handling day-to-day investment decision-making.
The new rules only mandate compliance with existing UK legal restrictions: bans on anti-personnel mines and cluster munitions, and UK obligations prohibiting trade in chemical and biological weapons, alongside general adherence to international sanctions regimes. Beyond that legal baseline, the policy states that for any investment with material exposure to high-risk activities, the OCIO simply needs to provide a rationale for the holding, outline existing risk controls, and explain its approach to managing ESG risks. No automatic exclusion applies to arms firms, tobacco, or fossil fuel companies that were previously barred.
University administrators have pushed back against criticism, arguing the policy update does not represent a weakening of responsible investment standards. In a statement, a university spokesperson said no changes have been made to the institution’s actual investment portfolio following the rule change, and that the university still sets all core objectives and constraints for its holdings, with the OCIO only managing routine day-to-day decisions within those boundaries.
The spokesperson added that the revised framework strengthens oversight and transparency, shifting from a rigid fixed exclusion list to clear, principle-based expectations that cover legal compliance, ESG integration, stewardship, voting, climate action, human rights and governance. They noted the university has been a signatory to the United Nations Principles for Responsible Investment (UNPRI) since 2019, and the update merely aligns policy with the practical operation of its current delegated, pooled-fund investment model.
That explanation has done little to appease student leaders, who have condemned the rollback as a betrayal of institutional commitments to human rights. Antonia Listrat, president of the university’s official Guild of Students, called the decision a devastating signal to the campus community. “This sends a devastating message to students and staff who believe our university should uphold human rights and invest in education, not the arms trade,” Listrat said. “Students voted for their university to strengthen its ethical standards, not make it easier to profit from companies connected to armed conflict.”
The rollback is not the first time the University of Birmingham has faced backlash over its ties to the arms trade linked to Israel’s campaign in Gaza. Even under the previous stricter investment rules, the institution maintained a formal partnership with Rolls-Royce, a manufacturing giant that produces primarily civilian goods but also supplies military equipment to the Israeli army. In 2019, Birmingham also joined four other UK universities to launch a strategic partnership with BAE Systems, the UK’s largest arms manufacturer, which produces components for F-35 fighter jets that the Israeli military has deployed extensively in its Gaza operations.
Across the UK higher education sector, the University of Birmingham’s move runs counter to a growing trend of institutions tightening arms investment restrictions in response to mass student protests calling for divestment from firms linked to Israeli human rights violations in Gaza. Most recently, Queen’s University Belfast announced it would divest all holdings tied to Israel in June 2025, joining a growing list of institutions adopting stricter ethical rules.
Instead of loosening restrictions, Birmingham has taken a hardline approach to pro-divestment and pro-Gaza student activism on campus: the university launched legal action against student protesters occupying campus ground to demand divestment in July 2024. That hardline stance mirrors actions taken by the London School of Economics, which evicted its own pro-Gaza encampment of protesters the same year.
Investigations by Middle East Eye in recent months have exposed extensive hidden investments in arms and firms linked to Israeli human rights violations across other top UK institutions. In October 2024, MEE revealed that the University of Oxford held indirect investments in at least 49 companies flagged by the United Nations and leading human rights organizations for their role in illegal Israeli activities in occupied Palestinian territories. A February 2025 investigation further found that the University of Cambridge’s endowment fund had more than £140 million ($189 million) invested in a fund that held shares in firms linked to Israeli human rights abuses, including tech firm Palantir Technologies, construction giant Caterpillar and aerospace manufacturer GE Aerospace.
The policy shift at Birmingham also comes amid conflicting actions by the UK national government, which imposed a partial arms embargo on Israel in September 2024, but simultaneously approved $169 million in new military exports to the country, including more than 8,600 separate munitions categorized as “bombs, grenades, torpedoes, mines, missiles and other similar munitions.”
Since the 7 October 2023 Hamas attack that killed 1,200 people in southern Israel, Israeli military operations in Gaza and the West Bank have killed more than 73,000 Palestinians and wounded an additional 170,000, according to latest health authorities in the region, triggering a widespread humanitarian crisis and global calls for a ceasefire and an end to arms sales to Israel.