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DAMIEN GAYLE : UK military turns to
universities to research psychological warfare

Cambridge
among partners shortlisted for £70m MoD funding, documents show

Documents
published by Cambridge showed the MoD wanted to find new ways of manipulating
behaviour. Photograph: Nick Ansell/PA

The British military is recruiting
philosophers, psychologists and theologians to research new methods of
psychological warfare and behavioural manipulation, leaked documents show.

Cambridge University was among the
institutions shortlisted by officials in the Ministry of Defence’s Defence
Science and Technology Laboratory (DSTL), as it sought a partner to spend
almost £70m in funding for a project known as the human and social sciences
research capability (HSSRC), looking at how the arts, humanities and social
sciences can shape military and security strategies, including “psychological
operations”.

A spokesperson for the university said it had
since pulled out. Others in the running were Lancaster University – which also
subsequently dropped out – and the arms companies BAE Systems and QinetiQ.

In a slideshow to prospective contractors
published online, DSTL listed “understanding and influencing human behaviour”
among its list of research priorities, including through the “targeted
manipulation of information” and “coordinated use of the full spectrum of
national capabilities … including military, non-military, overt and covert”.

MoD
chart for understanding and influencing human behaviour. Photograph: MoD

According to leaked Cambridge University
documents detailing the research areas included under the programme and first
reported by student newspaper Varsity, the military wants to develop
“information activities and outreach, defence engagement and strategic
communications” alongside military campaigns, as well as “communications and
messaging [to] UK domestic and defence internal audiences that promote the
attraction, health, welfare and resilience of our people (military and civilian)”.

This research would include “the testing,
refinement and validation of workable concepts, tools, techniques and methods
to enable analysis of audiences to inform planning of appropriate activities,
synchronised delivery of these activities [and] measurement of their
effectiveness”, the document said.

A spokesperson for DSTL said its research into
“targeted manipulation of information” was focused on “communicating with
overseas audiences and deterring adversaries who threaten the UK’s interests”.
The research was intended to tailor military communications to key audiences in
the most appropriate way, the spokesperson said, adding: “All DSTL research
complies with ethical and legal requirements.”

For their HSSRC bid, Cambridge dons proposed a
partnership with the national security consultancy Frazer-Nash to set up a
research centre, initially within the university’s centre for research in the arts,
social sciences and humanities (CRASSH). Within 12 months, it was to be spun
out into an independent research facility within the university, called the
Centre for Strategic Futures, “with the longer-term aim to explore the
potential for this to be spun out as [a] profit-generating programme management
consultancy”.

Funded with an initial £6.9m over four years,
the centre would help the MoD decide where to spend its money, “including
administering open competitive calls for research funding”. University
administrators expected that not only would the core funding “provide a
significant surplus” but a further £20m would pay for research by its own
academics.

Forming the partnership with Frazer-Nash,
“which has the highest levels of security clearance”, would give Cambridge
access to the defence industry, as well as the framework to handle “projects up
to the security level of ‘secret’.” The documents suggested the university has
existing relationships with the MoD, DSTL and Frazer-Nash, but the natures of
these were not made clear.

Dozens of academics at Cambridge were listed
as engaged with the bid, including specialists in disciplines such as
architecture, psychiatry, neuroscience and sociology. The project would have
been led by Prof Steven Connor, the director of CRASSH.

Cambridge’s general board of the faculties
approved the bid for the funding in June 2018, after a presentation by the
university’s pro-vice chancellor for research, on a pitch written by Dr Peter
Hedges, the head of the university’s research office. Board members were told
Cambridge had been criticised for not seizing similar opportunities in the
past. Taking this opportunity would, they heard, given them a chance to
influence defence research and policymakers.

Heads of the schools potentially involved in
the project were supportive, the documents suggested, particularly since many
represented areas that typically struggle to obtain research funding. Arts and
humanities in particular do not often benefit from big pots of research investment.

A spokesperson for Cambridge said the
university was no longer bidding for the HSSRC contract, but was not able to
give details as to why it had decided to pull out at such a late stage. Simon
Schaffer, a professor of the history and philosophy of science at Cambridge,
said he welcomed the withdrawal but was concerned it had not been more widely
discussed at the university.

Schaffer was particularly concerned by the
suggestion in the documents that “reputational risks” posed by the university’s
collaboration with the MoD would have been mitigated by a communications
campaign paid for by the HSSRC funding.

“Now I don’t want to be too academic about
this, but it’s very striking that a programme designed to change people’s views
and opinions for military purposes would spend some of its money changing
people’s views and opinions, so that they wouldn’t object to changing people’s
views and opinions. See what they did there? Propaganda squared, and that seems
wrong,” he said.

DSTL said no PR budget was included in the
funding available for HSSRC.