Description
This paper explores the existing provision for military education in UK universities as constituted by the University Service Units and measures that provision against the stated priorities of the 2025 Strategic Defence Review. It demonstrates that the Higher Education space was a neglected aspect of the SDR with regard to military education and as a result an opportunity has been missed to transform the relationship between the MOD and the university sector and to transform what we mean by military education in general.
It further argues that engaging the entire Higher Education community is essential to the fulfilment of the SDR’s goal of building support for a “whole of society approach to defence” and for the defence needs of the current and future threat environment. For their part, universities need to be encouraged to welcome this enhanced relationship with the Armed Forces and to embrace the opportunities that this presents. Only once both these things happen can the UK move away from educating for the military in a narrow sense and embrace military education for the new strategic environment. To build resilience UK universities need to be embraced and utilised more fully than they currently are.
