Leading institutions like the University of Cambridge, Imperial College London, the University of Glasgow, Cranfield, and Northumbria Universities were among those allegedly involved.
A recent media investigation has raised questions about the role of British universities in aiding Iran’s development of unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) technology.
According to a report by The Jewish Chronicle, scientists from at least 11 UK universities might have unwittingly contributed to Iran’s drone programme through research projects.
“Senior MPs and peers expressed deep concern over the findings,” said the report, and a government spokesperson has also addressed the issue. The report claims that “the British cooperated with Iran in research projects with military and civilian applications.”
Financial backing for these research projects reportedly came from Tehran. The investigation reveals that there were at least 16 studies involving technologies relevant to UAV engines and aerial drone systems. These technologies could potentially be used in the production of Shahed 136 kamikaze drones, which are currently being deployed by Russia in Ukraine.
One particular study that was highlighted focused on the modernisation of drone engines to enhance their capabilities. “In one of the projects, British researchers worked to improve drone engines, boosting their altitude, speed and range. The research concerned the modernization of light two-stroke engines used in UAVs,” the investigation notes.
Good Lord 😕
Hate to say it but the Jewish Chronicle does love to produce stories of this nature intimating potential ill conceived actions (to put it delicately) by a whole range of institutions. Always difficult to dig down into the guts of it all, tends to stick to generalisations with the important buzz words (Iran being obviously the prime one to get the desired effect) that may or may not have substance. I would like to know more about the foundations of this research because it might be extremely concerning for us all at one end or a manipulated, insubstantial quasi association at the other. The main purpose of the JC is to keep the ‘troops’ onside so it’s important to have other sources of information to work out where upon the line between those two extremes this, as other accusation it sits.
Spy, its all in the linked article and if they can name universities and the projects they were/are working on, then questions must be raised about how British Universities which have (many a time) berated working with the British Military, refused to condem ISIS (granted that was the NUS) and promote a vile anti-semetic narrative which as we have seen infects many an impressable student has no issue working with Iranian Universities, you know that Iran which :
1) Treats women as second class citizens
2) Which clamps down hard on any form of distent
3) Which hangs people for political reasons
4) Which kidnaps people for political leverage
5) Which funds terrorist groups such as Hezb-allah which it uses to carry out terror atatcks around the world, or as we saw the other year hoard 3 tonnes of
ammonium nitrate in London
6) Operates an overt Nuke program
7) Plays silly buggers in the Arabian Gulf.
The article is a timely reminder of how in the past our open society’s facilities have been exploited by enemies, real and potential. It did not begin with Iran and won’t end with Iran either. (The N.U.S. is splinter among students most of whose vocal element study social science – gender critical studies and whatnot. I doubt science students at the level of this research have any time for the N.U.S. beyond the bar …)
This is not about the students, let’s be honest the research in universities is very much lead by the money…most research at this level occurs because of industrial sponsorship and partnership…when you look at it there is actually surprising little legislation preventing UK and Iranian academic institutes working together…there are no longer any outstanding really significant UN sanctions…just US ( which are very tight) and EU ( covering some specific things)….
Not saying it’s a clever thing to be doing geopolitically ( it’s not) or morally ( it’s not) but from a legal point of view they can.
Very little if any to be honest, it’s our children that are funding most of it to be honest, as well as industrial partners.
Yet most companies steer clear of Iran even if the business offer is legit and there’s money to be made.
Hi expat that’s because of the fact Iran has been removed from swift..effectively you cannot easily send or extract money so even if it’s a business sector that’s not on the U.S./EU list..it’s not really possible to do normal business.
That’s not strictly true there’s legitimate areas of business allowed outside sanctions and swift is allowed for these.
I thought it was de facto a complete ban on swift ? As effectively all the Iranian banks has been sanctioned, so although it was not Iran as a nation being completely removed and covered by a whole disconnect the fact every bank was on the sanction list made it so.
US has completely banned SWIFT but you can still sell say medicine to Iran and get an exemption. However most companies don’t want to be associated with Iran.
There’s a UK government web page dedicated to doing business with Iran. Extract below.
You must ensure that any proposed agreements do not deal, either directly or indirectly, with a designated entity either in the supply of material or services or in the payment route used.
You are not allowed to make funds and economic resources available to sanctioned entities, directly or indirectly, without a licence. To deal with an entity subject to financial sanctions you must contact HM Treasury with information about the proposed dealings and the relevant grounds for licensing. HM Treasury would then consider whether a licence can be issued.
As opposed to Israel which is a paragon of virtue, right?
why is it wrong to help Iran militarily while it is ok to help Israel which practices a vicious apartheid against the Palestinian people?
Though no Iranian drones have engines smaller than 100hp so obviously the 40hp engine hasnt been utilised militarily.
Not difficult at all unless you intentionally like being obtuse.
I wouldn’t go as far as traitors. Often institutions work on projects together across the world.
What is probably needed is some oversight committee to review proposed projects at universities.
Chances are the universities won’t be thinking about the nasty side of tech they work on.
Anything coming from Iran or similar countries should be taken with a large dose of caution.
Until more information is provided about the projects and what was developed from these projects it’s guess work to what the implications may be.
One good thing from it is that the U.K. has access to the outcomes of these projects.
University camps in uk produced many spies for the Rusdians and probably now the Chinese .
Until we get more info it’s hard to say what has actually happened.
It could be something as like a valve/bolt to full systems.
The safe guards for working with other universities may need tightened up.
Charged with espionage last century a trio of investigative reporters demonstrated that all their secrets were obtained by going to a good library and being able to put 2 and 2 together. A huge amount is published. Publishing is the route to gaining funding. Diligence and some above basic level intelligence is used all the time all over the world to gain knowledge.
The ABC trial?
Yes. Sorry, no prize. They weren’t trying to help this country but they showed how lax we had become.
Indeed, I think some are actually against the West, Campbell especially.
He does, however, expose some interesting stuff.
If this was academic work outside of stuff covered by the official secrets act, they have done nothing wrong and general work on commercial drones is just day to day stuff….there are no specific bans around UK Universities working with Iranian universities..unless it’s an area that the EU or US has specifically sanctioned. probably needs a lot more tightening up…I suspect it’s legislators being well behind on the military application of commercial drone tec.
think i remember norton rotary engines being used in drones because of the power to weight ratio, why we’re helping iran to do anything is beyond me, its a rouge state that ransoms our citizens and ships
Andrew, I think any chap using ‘rouge’ in Iran would set him up for a meeting with the hangman.
lol my bad
Your secret is safe with me (he lied …)
Look at you deploying the makeup bag..😂🤣😂
the world comes to our uni’s, we should attempt to slow the education to those that intend harm to the West. maybe specific courses in engineering etc should have more oversight.
Folks, this has being going on for decades.
I remember Hatfield Poly back in the late 70s/early 1980s was riddled with Iranian revolutionaries wanting to behead Americans and they wern’t studying Humanities. They tried to ban the Su newsletter. Complete wild look in their eyes. God know what the Chinese and others have been doing since to hoover up advanced tech and research.
Pure naivety on behalf of the UK.
👍
deleted as i posted as a reply rather than a comment
When we heard the claims made for Iraq’s Weapons of Mass Destruction, a Pakistani businessman I know pointed out to me that there were many Iraqi students lodged around our district, all studying to PhD level Physics and Chemistry.
Yes. Iraq build their WMD’s but most people they bought them… the bought scientist but not WMD’s.
They want all over the world buying dual use components. albeit their WMD testing installation was build by DDR( For those young that is Communist East Germany).
Their biological warfare went all over world buying medical antrax samples to compare to endemic antrax.
Hardly surprising. Seems to be inline with all the other self-destructive nonsense going on in our societies various institutions over the last 20 years.
The naivety and greed of our universities is at best shameful.
Lets face it, UK universities have been accused of chasing foreign money for some time & not being fussy about the dodgy regimes they get it from.
Spot on , the fact it was to aid a regime dedicated to wiping Israel off the map probably added a perverse frisson to their no questions asked greed.
The reduction of government funding has only exacerbated the issue.
How many foreign students do they need to balance their books (not literally of course) and how that increases their influence on the independence of our educational institutions- fron China to Iran.
Add to that the tendancies of UK students to believe that the openess of our democracy is shared by all other countries and you have the situation we have.
G wrote:
So a few years back I decided to do a degree, as I was a mature student I decided to become a student rep, so I attended a weekly meeting and on walking into the room (held in the catering students restroom, who had laid on a right fuddle of snacks. George the lad I had walked in with went straight to eating mode, me, I went and sat down and started getting my paperwork ready. All of a sudden I heard George exclaim
“F-ing ask him?”
On looking up I saw the chair of the meeting (head of the Uni library) walking over to me whereupon she asked why I wasn’t eating. I replied “I had breakfast” To which she replied, so you are not observing “Ramadan” to which I answered, “I’m CoE”
George at this point started jumping up and down shouting out “See I told you so”
Turned out, when she saw me walk past the food, she presumed I was a Muslim and made everybody put down their food and stop eating until she came to George. Who told her to take a hike.
It is that liberal mindset which destroys cohesion where those on the right of the pollical spectrum will state non whites as destroying the British way of life and their polar opposites demanding we make even more concessions in which to accommodate the more questionable aspects of imported customs.
Horrible story, but that kind of leftism is not liberal at all.
They are Marxists that expanded their market. The social class struggle theory to any class they can ape upon: race class, sex genre class, religion class etc to build a bigger mechanism of deconstruction of western society.
You missed climate communism. Yes we should reduce carbon but we can individually choose how we do this but some see climate as a way to regulate us and remove choice from society.
Not the first time heard these accusations involving our universities, also supported china in radar tech in the past. Surely gov has some oversight on what gets accessed by whom?
Research goes where the money is…..the market dictates unless you regulate properly.
The Military Aviation History youtube channel did a video on how the components for Iranian drones were obtained.
A sieve springs to mind!
This is what happens when you trash your culture and national history as these Universities and other places do.
Interesting story but thats about it. I highly doubt the universities were aware they were being funded by Iran and in the modern world of complex corporate ownership structures /service agreements etc it would be almost impossible to stop it.
If you ready the article its seems clear they did with links to Iranian individuals and institutions.
What’s the betting the Chinese Communist Party’s Confucius Institute was instrumental in resourcing this work. The universities named have CCP connections.
Hardly surprising, with Marxists woke leftist virtue signaling western Universities hell bent on destroying the west, and western society from within, them directly aiding enemies of the west who would destroy us is their next logical step, many have form for helping the enemy going back decades