Replantando la educación militar en las universidades del Reino Unido de Gran Bretaña

An Undervalued Asset: Military Education in the University Sector

One of the central themes of the SDR was the need for better connectivity of the armed forces to the society from which they are drawn, and an increased role for an extended reserve force. Viewed from academia, what was curious about the SDR was the way that it failed to connect this theme to the university sector. While many other areas were mentioned in regard to these themes, the UK higher education space was absent. This curious omission was in spite of the fact that all three services actively engage with the university community through the operation of University Service Units (USUs), specifically, University Royal Naval Units (URNUs), Officer Training Corps/Regiments (OTC/Rs) and University Air Squadrons (UASs), and liaise with higher education institutions through the operation of 19 regional Military Education Committees (MECs), and nationally through the Council of Military Education Committees.

That this connectivity was largely omitted is in part a tacit admission that the role of the USU, and indeed the MECs, is largely limited to the tiny proportion of university students who serve in these units. It also represents a missed opportunity to embrace a wider conversation about how defence could better engage with UK higher education establishments, their staff and students, and how the military service units in particular could play an enhanced role in being advocates for the armed forces, but also for defence, in these spaces. To focus solely on those students recruited to the USU, and the specific research being done on defence, is to miss a wider opportunity for engagement with the talented staff of the sector and the vast majority of the student population who pass through the system with no contact with the nation’s armed forces.

University Service Units: The Current Set Up

Officer Training Corps, established in 1908, was designed to prepare most students for the possibility of mass mobilisation. The first few UASs were formed in 1925 and expanded rapidly in 1941 with the same purpose, while URNUs were reformed in 1967 (after limited service in the Second World War) with the aim to encourage STEM graduates to join the Navy. Today, however, these units recruit and interact with less than 0.5% of the student population and hardly any staff. While the number of students in higher education has grown substantially, the size of the engagement with the armed forces has not kept pace and indeed has shrunk markedly as a percentage of the student body. As a result, while the USUs present an opportunity to experience military life first-hand, to develop confidence, adaptability, teamwork, leadership and communication skills, and an understanding of the military ethos, they do so for only a very small proportion of the majority of 18–21-year-olds in the university system. Each of the 16 URNUs consists of about 50 students, the 14 UASs range from 60–70 members each, while the 16 OTC/Rs comprised 80–290 students each. Figures for October 2022 put the total strength of the OTC/Rs, including the then existent Defence Technical Undergraduate Scheme, at 2,560. Compared to engagement with school-aged students, where 88,160 community cadets and 50,350 Combined Cadet Forces are enrolled, USUs are tiny.

International comparisons also highlight the small scale of the UK operation. In the US, there are 20,000 students in the US Army Reserve Officers’ Training Corps alone, with another 10,000 in the other services. In China, all students in Chinese universities must undergo 21 days of compulsory military education in order to raise ‘national defence awareness’.

Not only are the UK USUs small, but they tend to recruit those who come up from the junior cadet forces, from military families or from those already thinking of a military career. As a result, their role as an advocate of the broader defence mission, among those who are not already sympathetic, is limited.

In providing a bridge between cadets and regular service for university students, and in forming a recruitment pipeline to regular commissions, particularly for the Army, these units are a valuable part of the wider military community. As currently constituted, they add tremendous value to their student members, whether they join as regulars, reserves or enter other professions with a greater understanding of military life and service. For most former members, the main benefit is that they take an understanding of defence with them into their civilian careers. Whether they represent the best model for reaching out to every group and demographic, and for engagement with the UK’s student population as a whole, in their present form, however, is another matter entirely.

A New Model for Military Education for a New Strategic Landscape

The 2025 SDR is premised on the need to be able to respond to a greater level of threat than has been seen in a generation and in a geopolitical environment in which the reliance on allies is less certain. Or to use the SDR’s language, ‘the UK’s longstanding assumptions about global power balances and structures are no longer certain’. Implicit in its assessment and recommendation is the need to prepare for resilience through the generation of mass. For this reason, it proposes an increase in ‘active reserves by 20% … most likely in the 2030s’ and expanding the ‘Cadet Forces by 30% by 2030 (with an ambition to reach 250,000 in the longer term)’. To be clear, in doing this, the aim is not just to expand the pipeline for recruitment to the active duty armed forces, regular and reserve. It is also premised on the potential need to expand the armed forces rapidly through mobilisation and the need to have laid down military skills, understanding and support for the mission in preparation for such an eventuality.

What is striking in this discussion is the absence of plans to increase the size, role and profile of the USUs in this context, even though this was explicitly what they were originally created to do. The case for doing so again is obvious. Famously, when asked why he robbed banks, Willie Sutton, replied, ‘that’s where the money is’. In the UK, it is in higher education where the largest proportion of 18–21-year-olds can be found, 36.4% of them in 2024. So if the UK wants to increase the number of reserves, regulars adult cadet leaders, and to reconnect the armed forces with society as a whole, the latter needs to expand their presence in the higher education space. Given that recruitment and retention of service personnel is also challenging for all three services, an increased presence in the higher education sector seems an obvious opportunity. Rather than spending £1.3 billion on mass advertising to recruit for the armed forces, at least part of that budget could be better spent on targeted activities among the UK student population.

Not only is there scope for the USUs to have a larger role, but a revamped operation could also do things better. While there is obvious merit in inspiring students to learn about the ethos of each individual service, there is room for efficiency through joint, or integrated, activity. The units operate three separate command structures and recruitment and selection procedures, and conduct activities that duplicate each other without any of the benefits of scale that a joined-up approach could bring. The short tenure of the unit commands also hampers institutional memory and the necessity of building relationships with universities. The SDR’s recommendation for ‘staying in roles longer’ makes sense for these posts. The units often work best through continuity of command, or the continuity provided by competent reserve officers as deputies.

In some areas of the country, such as the West Midlands, the recruitment ‘patches’ of the three services do not even overlap perfectly. This set up seems to run counter to the SDR’s dictate that ‘education must be “whole force by default, single Service by exception”’. A revamped USU offer could benefit from a more joined-up approach that makes better use of the investment made in the USUs and a more joined-up experience presented to students. In order to showcase all the regional reserve opportunities available to student members, the USU could also engage more systematically with local reserve units on a tri-service basis to raise the visibility of the multiple offers that are available alongside their studies and on graduation. Their presence within universities makes them the obvious bridge between these young people and the local reserve units as well as being able to point to regular career paths. Their presence is also a useful vehicle for promoting the opportunity to join the Joint Cyber Reserve Force – which seeks to recruit people with IT skills directly into relevant jobs – or the intelligence services. The success of the Virtual URNU in reaching a different cohort of students also shows the possibility of scaling the operational offer. This incarnation of the URNU is designed to engage students beyond the reach of the established units and operates entirely online for its drill nights. It also offers a blueprint for exploring a larger, cheaper model.

A key theme of the SDR was the need to reconnect the armed forces with the society from which they have become detached through a whole-of-society approach ‘where everyone has a role to play’. This theme has two elements: defence needs to be a visible and integrated part of the society, which it serves, and from which its members are drawn; and in a time of increased threat, society needs to be better prepared through civic engagement as a means of achieving greater resilience. In fulfilment of its whole-of-society approach to defence, the SDR also proposes ‘working with the Department for Education to develop understanding of the armed forces among young people in schools’. While this is welcome, it is also something that needs to happen with universities, and the USUs are well placed to lead on this policy.

With the decline in the number of veterans in society in general, universities now lack a ready core of staff with a first-hand understanding of service life or the armed forces mission in general. One of the consequences of this is that some military education committees are under-populated and can be sidelined by the universities in their regions. Another consequence is that there are not always voices ready to defend the right of the armed forces to participate in university life. Indeed, among some individuals and institutions, the very presence of the armed forces on campus is denied or contested with the result that the military are effectively invisible within these spaces. For example, it is notable that the Cambridge Military Education Committee derives no financial support from any of the higher education institutions on its patch, which include the universities of Cambridge, East Anglia, Anglia Ruskin, Essex and Northampton.

There are well-established linkages between the armed forces and UK universities, such as the contracts awarded to King’s College London to provide teaching at the UK Defence Academy, and similar arrangements between Lincoln and Britannia Naval College, Reading and Henley for Sandhurst, and Portsmouth University for RAF Cranwell. However, these linkages involve the universities coming to the armed forces rather than the other way around in a way that would raise and normalise their presence among the student population.

Recognising, as does the SDR, that ‘the Armed Forces recruit from, and operate with the consent of, the society they serve and protect’, it is clear that this invisibility needs to be addressed. Individual universities can also contest the presence of the armed forces on campus, despite being recipients of core financial support and individual government contracts. The UK government needs to contest back the right to operate in these spaces and ensure that the presence of the armed forces there is accepted and normalised by, and within, university institutions. There will always be debate on all manner of things within student politics, and within some institutions, but this should not prevent the armed forces from gaining access to those interested in participating in the units or exploring military careers.

Defence Forward: Universities and Their Civic Responsibilities

Universities have civic as well as purely educational roles and responsibilities, and these should involve embracing all aspects of society including the armed forces. Increasing the size and role of the USUs could help in this regard. Members of the units or commissioned bursary students should be encouraged to attend their graduation and campus remembrance ceremonies in uniform; to attend lectures and cadet-organised USU debates in service dress; and to publicise the charity work of their student members online and elsewhere. The directing staff of the units should deliver and/or arrange lectures to the wider student body on leadership, service life and the role that defence plays in deterring and protecting against threats to the UK. The units also need an active social media presence to promote their role as part of service life. The relationship between the armed forces and UK universities at a minimum needs to be such that the offer of the USUs is made clear to all potential applicants without hinderance, and the presence of the units within the university community should be unincumbered.

The SDR’s suggestion of the return of a military gap year is a welcome initiative but also has scope to be built on by working with universities to plan how creatively this can be realised. As well as being made available between sixth form and university, the scheme could be widened to offer a sandwich year for students completing their second year of study. This addition to the planned scheme could allow a risk-free taste of a military career in a way that both helps to recruit to difficult-to-fill roles and spreads an understanding of the armed forces among a wider group of individuals. Including the sandwich year option is crucial to reach those who have never considered any association with the armed forces before going to university and could be presented as an option as part of many degree pathways or during their initial period of study as an undergraduate.

Both sets of students could then be integrated or employed within the revived USU structures in a way that helps support their wider mission.

The Army could also offer summer camps to interested students who would welcome the opportunity to learn basic military skills such as first aid, survival skills and fieldcraft (including map reading and navigation), teamwork and even weapons handling, but also as a means of building the capacity for mobilisations should that become necessary. The establishment of ‘Phase 0’ camps, set up as part of the ‘Army 2020’ initiative, could be expanded and used for the purpose of introducing a wider section of the population to military life. The success of Operation Interflex, during which more than 45,000 Ukrainian soldiers have been trained in the UK over three years, also demonstrates the capacity and capability for training substantially more people than the Army has the ability to recruit or maintain through normal channels.

The Armed Services Covenant: A Model to Build on

Over the last 10 years, civil–military relations have been greatly improved by the armed forces working with employers, such as universities, through the operation of the Armed Forces Covenant. This scheme has done a good job in advancing the interests of veterans, service personnel and their families, and mustering commitments that they are not discriminated against, and also that reservists are given the opportunity for time off to serve. This is an area that has scope to be enhanced. Universities should be encouraged to identify who their veterans and reservists are, and they should draw upon their experience in talking to students, career services and working with the USUs. Inviting back serving and retired alumni and celebrating their career successes should also be encouraged. Over a hundred universities have now signed the Armed Forces Covenant showing both a broad willingness to support the broader defence mission and a receptiveness to potentially closer working relationship with the armed forces.

The relationships and connectivity built through this process provide the groundwork for wider and deeper ties. Most obviously, as outlined, are conversations concerning the expansion of military education in all its forms within the higher education sector. But the unique role that universities play in society also represents a tremendous resource in the wider context of the need for civil defence and national resilience. As Gary Fisher argues, universities should be viewed and prepared as ‘vital components of national resilience. With their scale, civic embeddedness and breadth of expertise, UK universities represent a “composite capability” spanning defence, public health, skills, logistics and democratic stability’. He points to the critical role that UK universities have played historically and that Ukraine’s universities have played over since the Russian invasion in 2022. He notes that in Ukraine ‘its universities have served as shelters, aid hubs, research centres and diplomatic platforms in wartime, a model the UK higher education sector could exceed given its greater scale and integration’ but this would be more effectively achieved through advanced planning and forethought.

Conclusion

The SDR rightly points to the need to be prepared for a strategic environment where the ability to rely on the UK’s national assets and resilience may be a necessity. To realise this capability requires re-connecting the UK armed forces with the society from which they are drawn and must be sustained. Achieving this requires active and sustained engagement with all aspects of society including the UK’s universities where so many of the next generation are educated and shaped. Success also requires a different vision of the university–Ministry of Defence relationship. Instead of seeing universities merely as a source of officers and ideas for the armed forces and the Ministry of Defence in general, they need to be reimagined as vital partners in shaping how the armed forces are viewed, who they are for and where they are from. Such a two-way flow would also allow a vital engagement with the higher education sector in a way that would address the SDR’s theme of societal preparedness and resilience.

The USUs are currently configured to interact with only a small select group of students as part of a military posture suited to a different era. While this worked well when the UK was focused on expeditionary conflicts in the post-Cold War period, this model is ill-suited to an era where the homeland is potentially threatened and war in Europe is a stark reality. Currently, the USUs are largely invisible in a higher education environment, which is largely and practically a military-free space. Both situations are unsuited to a world where a whole-of-society approach to defence is necessary.

What is meant by military education in its broadest sense needs to be rethought for the current international situation. The UK armed forces need to engage with the large numbers of 18–21-year-olds studying in the university sector more than they currently do and in ways that are both smarter and more inclusive. (Currently in the UK armed forces, only 11.4% of its intake are female. The UK university student population is, by contrast, 57% female.)

Ideally, the USU offer needs to go beyond limited full membership of the units for a few, and to embrace the need to engage with the student population as a whole on matters of military threat and national preparedness. If there is to be ‘a decisive shift from the post-Cold war era’ to ‘a renewed emphasis on home defence and resilience’, it could do well with starting here.

To advocate for an investment in military education at a time of stretched budgets and unfulfilled commitments may be unwelcome to some. Yet the scale of the return on building support for, and awareness of, the wider defence mission would justify the mission alone and may well pay for itself in the interest generated for recruitment from a population, which has hitherto been neglected.

The previous government toyed with the idea of compulsory military service, which proved unpopular with the cohort it was targeted at. An extended USU offer and a more visible engagement with this age group represents a viable and sustainable alternative. Engaging the entire higher education community is essential to the fulfilment of the SDR’s goal of building support 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 to some of its most talented students and staff.