Is it Worth It? Northumbria University and Lockheed Martin

“Is It Worth It?”: Northumbria University and Lockheed Martin

The University, “Defence”, and Destruction

On July 13, 2026, Northumbria University announced its acceptance as a founding member of a new group in UK Higher Education, the Defence Universities Alliance. This grouping, forged between the Ministry of Defence and 35 British universities, promises to drive student recruitment to degrees that will lead to “exciting defence careers” and help develop “cutting-edge research” at these institutions. The Chief Scientific Advisor to the MoD, Prof Tim Dafforn, declared himself, “incredibly excited about the opportunities this creates. The DUA will fundamentally change the way Defence, universities and industry work together - strengthening our national security, creating strategic advantage and supporting growth to deliver better outcomes for the UK.”

Given the many challenges British universities face, the DUA appears to be a particularly exciting opportunity, especially for a post-1992 institution such as Northumbria to be ranked alongside an exclusive cabal of HEIs Oxford, King’s College, UCL, and Newcastle. Northumbria’s own press release highlighted the centrality of the North East Space Skills and Technology Centre (NESST) to its DUA membership. NESST, it proclaimed, “further underlines the breadth and ambition of Northumbria's contribution to national space, defence and security capability.” Northumbria is putting in £25m of its own capital expenditure on this project, to get £10m from the UK Space Agency and £15m from Lockheed Martin UK Space. 

Apart from being a good deal for Lockheed Martin, this insistence on NESST’s importance to the ‘defence’ industry seems to clash with the University’s previous presentation of NESST’s role. As the Weaponising Universities report reveals, Northumbria’s “expertise” was deliberately “targeted by Lockheed Martin”. Lockheed Martin UK Space is, of course, part of the Lockheed Martin group. Lockheed Martin is the world’s largest weapons manufacturer and supplier of fighter jets, transport aeroplanes, Hellfire missiles, helicopters, and rocket launch systems to various regimes and governments across the globe, including enabling the genocidal campaign of the state of Israel against the Palestinian people (as shown by the Palestine Space Institute), and it seems, anybody who has the temerity to attempt to bring humanitarian aid to the victims of this slaughter.

Northumbria’s leadership has been at pains to state that Lockheed Martin UK Space is an arm of Lockheed Martin's business that is explicitly not related to ‘defence’. For example, at an All Staff Briefing on 13 December 2023, Professor John Woodward, who led the NESST project, explained the importance of this separation to an understanding of NU’s relationship with Lockheed.

But, even if Lockheed Martin’s Missiles and Fire Control division, its Aerospace division, and its Rotary and Mission Systems division, are as separate from Lockheed Martin Space as your individual fingers are from each other, they share the same hand. And that hand will surely compel those fingers to unite into a fist, because that is what weapons manufacturers do: cross-subsidise to minimise risks and maximise revenue and dual-use technologies (in other words, equipment that possesses both civilian and military uses). Can we be sure that Lockheed Martin’s fist will not continue to destroy the lives of people across the globe?  Should or will Northumbria University be seen as complicit in that destruction?

No Guarantees, No Values?

The Memorandum of Understanding between Northumbria and Lockheed Martin has not been shared – even in redacted form – which worsens the opacity of their relationship. Northumbria’s leadership themselves told branch officers of Northumbria University and College Union (UCU) on 29/11/2023 that they could not “guarantee” research and technologies developed by Northumbria in partnership with Lockheed Martin will not be put to military uses. In an All-Staff Briefing on 13/12/23, Professor Andy Long, Northumbria’s Vice-Chancellor, said Lockheed Martin Space was “part of the same parent company.” Lockheed Martin themselves say their Space division helps “government and commercial customers gather, analyze, and securely distribute critical intelligence data”, and provides “various classified products and services in support of vital national security systems and international missions”, including “early missile warning systems” and “advanced strike and defensive systems.” The argument that this investment is not related to military uses is simply not tenable. 

Northumbria’s own ‘values and behaviours’ include being “compassionate” and fostering “inclusivity”, so people “respect everyone”, “support one another to succeed”, and “do the right thing”. Forging this partnership with Lockheed Martin surely threatens these values. It is hard to fathom how enabling regimes to bomb places reserved for humanitarian activities, hospitals, and even a bus full of children reflects the values the University professes to hold dear. It makes even less sense when we remember that Northumbria previously partnered with the Islamic University of Gaza, now reduced to rubble, like all of Gaza’s universities. Northumbria’s own Treasury Management and Investment Policy prohibits the university from directly investing funds in arms companies or in “corporations which are known to be complicit in the violation of international law”. Logically, it should therefore be unacceptable to receive money from or collaborate with such companies. Yet the university forges ahead, despite the serious ethical and moral concerns that emerge from this partnership. Should an employer, which spends considerable effort encouraging staff to identify closely with it, contribute to activities that end innocent lives and displace countless people? Or should management at NU adhere to the principles enshrined in the ‘Recommendations for Universities’ in the Weaponising Universities report?

Wages not Weapons

Northumbria’s membership of the DUA suggests that the University’s position on NESST has shifted from one that appeared to reject any suggestion that it was part of the military-industrial complex to one that fully embeds Northumbria in it. If the DUA “will create meaningful connections between students, academia and defence” (as the Minister for Defence Readiness stated), then surely NESST will participate in the DUA's quest to create the “meaningful connections” that the Minister hails? If the DUA will help propel “cutting-edge” research – an unfortunate turn of phrase given the centrality of exterminating human lives to the world’s ‘defence’ industries – surely NESST will follow suit? Consequently, even if Lockheed Martin chooses not to exploit its relationship with NU to benefit its divisions that engage in killing humans, NESST certainly will be contributing to the ‘defence’ industry in the UK.

What kind of job opportunities will emerge from NU’s embedding in DUA, and at what cost? Northumbria’s UCU branch supports the TUC’s Wages not Weapons campaign, which leads us to question the Vice Chancellor’s comment in an all-staff email (9/9/2026), that investments in NESST “are not… made despite the work on cost savings - they are made possible by it.” Let us remember that those “cost savings” involved people terminating their employment at Northumbria because they feared compulsory redundancy or wanted to prevent a colleague from being made redundant. Those “cost savings” involved cutting programmes and options across the university, limiting opportunities for students. Those “cost savings” mean real-life, insulting, below-inflation cost-of-living pay offers for staff.

Does Northumbria want to be a place to educate future generations of missile technicians, specialists in computer targeting systems, or weapons manufacturers? Does it want its research and teaching to contribute to the destruction of human lives and potentially the very planet that we live on? Do we the university to become a focus for protests and the attendant publicity, potentially putting the safety of staff and students at risk? A university should be better, and should mean more, than this.

As the TUC maintain in their Wages not Weapons campaign, which implicates Lockheed Martin’s technologies in “grave violations of international law”, good jobs for everybody, regional investment, and innovative research for sustainable growth matter, but they cannot come at the expense of people’s lives. Surely Northumbria should prioritize partnerships that align with values of human rights, international law, and social responsibility? Surely it should think about demilitarising, rather than militarising, education? Finally, and thinking again about the victims of Lockheed Martin operations across the globe, and colleagues abandoned in places like Gaza, the former Deputy Vice Chancellor Prof. Tom Lawson stated in June 2025 that Northumbria University was “committed” to becoming a University of Sanctuary, which would mean it supported refugees and people seeking asylum. The institution has so far made no progress on this commitment.

Lockheed Martin and Northumbria University: Factsheet and Action Points

Northumbria University (NU) is in a close relationship with Lockheed Martin (LM), the world's largest weapons manufacturer. LM’s technologies have been bought and used by genocidal regimes around the world.

NU’s new North East Space Skills and Technology Centre (NESST) is a multi-million pound project involving NU, LM, and the UK Space Agency. The University says NESST will create jobs, develop skills, and drive regional economic growth. But at what cost? Is it worth it?

  • What you should know:
  1. LM is the world’s largest weapons manufacturer.
  2. LM has invested £15m in NESST. NU has invested £25m of capital expenditure.
  3. LM will be on NU’s campus.
  4. LM will be able to use technologies developed at NESST.
  5. LM and NU management have not guaranteed that these technologies will not be for military use or ‘dual use’. This means the technologies could be used for both civilian and military purposes.
  6. LM is an American company competing with British firms, and its profits do not benefit UK taxpayers.
  • What you should ask:
  1. Does NU want to risk its research with LM contributing to genocide?
  2. Will LM and NU management guarantee technology and research developed at NESST will not be ‘dual use’, and that research and technologies developed through these partnerships will not have military applications?
  3. Will LM and NU management ensure transparency by publishing the Memorandum of Understanding between them?
  4. At a time when NU staff have faced job cuts, pay cuts, and programme cuts, should the university serve the ‘defence’ industry — or prioritise research and employment serving human needs, environmental sustainability, and social wellbeing?
  5. Should the university become a focus for protests, potentially putting the safety of staff and students at risk?

NU says its values compassion, inclusivity, respect and “doing the right thing”.

That should mean it can answer difficult questions about its relationship with weapons manufacturers.

Staff, students and the wider community deserve to know the terms governing any partnership and the safeguards surrounding any research involving LM.

NU’s future should be shaped by its staff, students and communities — not by the interests of the arms industry. A university must be better, and should mean more, than this.

The North East’s communities deserve good, secure, sustainable jobs and education.  But we should not have to accept militarisation as the price of regional investment.

What can you do?

  • Publicise and raise awareness of this issue by sharing this fact sheet and blog.
  • Write to the NU’s Vice Chancellor (Prof. Andy Long) asking him to publish agreements governing NU relationship with Lockheed Martin using the template below
  • Write to your MP and councillor using this template below.
  • Join activities protesting against NESST.

WAGES NOT WEAPONS – PEOPLE NOT BOMBS

Letter to Northumbria University Vice Chancellor

https://www.northumbria.ac.uk/about-us/leadership-governance/university-executive/vice-chancellor-and-chief-executive/

Dear Professor Long,

I am deeply concerned about Northumbria University’s relationship via NESST with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest weapons manufacturer.  Staff, students and the wider community deserve to know the terms governing any partnership and the safeguards surrounding any research involving LM. In their Wages not Weapons campaign, the TUC implicates LM’s technologies in “grave violations of international law”, reinforced by the findings of the Palestine Space Institute.

I am writing to ask you to:

  1. Confirm and guarantee no technologies or research developed in the relationship between Northumbria and Lockheed Martin will be for military purposes or ‘dual use’, i.e. for both civilian and military purposes.
  2. Publish details of the agreement between Northumbria University and Lockheed Martin in a transparent way.
  3. Explain how the relationship with the world’s largest arms manufacturer aligns with Northumbria University’s values and behaviours.
  4. Commit to follow the ‘Recommendations for Universities’ in the Weaponising Universities report

Northumbria’s future must be shaped by its staff, students and communities — not by the interests of the arms industry. A university can be better, and should mean more, than this.

The North East’s communities deserve good, secure, sustainable jobs and education.  But we should not have to accept militarisation as the price of regional investment. I will be writing to my MP about this matter. 

Yours sincerely,

Letter to MP

Dear [Your MP: Find your MP - MPs and Lords - UK Parliament]

I’m writing to you as one of your constituents [and as an employee of Northumbria University] to raise my concern about Northumbria University’s partnership with Lockheed Martin, the world’s largest arms manufacturer. In their Wages not Weapons campaign, the TUC implicates LM’s technologies in “grave violations of international law”, reinforced by the findings of the Palestine Space Institute.

I am writing to ask you to ask Professor Andy Long, Northumbria’s VC to:

  1. Confirm and guarantee no technologies or research developed in the relationship between Northumbria and Lockheed Martin will be for military purposes or ‘dual use’, i.e. for both civilian and military purposes.
  2. Publish details of the agreement between Northumbria University and Lockheed Martin in a transparent way.
  3. Explain how the relationship with the world’s largest arms manufacturer aligns with Northumbria University’s values and behaviours.
  4. Commit to follow the ‘Recommendations for Universities’ in the Weaponising Universities report

Northumbria’s future must be shaped by its staff, students and communities and not by the interests of the arms industry. A university can be better, and should mean more, than this.

The North East’s communities deserve good, secure, sustainable jobs and education.  But we should not have to accept militarisation as the price of regional investment.

With thanks for your time and consideration,