There have been fresh waves of fear over where a university might look to find funding as the hand of austerity maintains its iron grip on British higher education.

In 2007, The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT) released a report entitled ‘Study War No More’ which exposed at least 26 of UK’s universities to be investors in military projects exceeding £725 million in value. Of these, Cambridge was one of the largest investors, receiving an extraordinary £42,565,637 from its military investments.

In light of the unrelenting squeeze on university budgets, student protestors have stepped up their action against university involvement with arms trade. “If they were investing in arms companies then, they must be investing now more than ever,” said one student, adding that Cambridge must assure us that its hands are clean.

Cambridge has denied investing in arms manufacturing and defence companies, but did admit that it holds public equity investments ‘through exchange-traded and index funds linked to the main stock market indices’ and that it accordingly ‘will have had indirect exposure to the companies’.

According to The Campaign Against Arms Trade (CAAT), Cambridge’s website once openly acknowledged that BAE systems, one of the world’s largest military contractors, was Cambridge’s ‘second largest industrial sponsor of research in the aerospace sector’ in 2002/3.

Though the ethical ambiguities of such investment might be glossed over in light of the economic difficulties faced by British universities, the presence of these same arms companies at university recruitment fairs still remains unexplained. BAE was present at the University of London Careers Group event in 2010 despite being an employer of only 0.2% of the UK workforce.

Despite the scandal caused by these accusations in 2007, little has changed in the last four years.