King’s College is calling for student views on its investment strategy, following pressure from students and activists to cut ties with Israel and the arms industry.

On Wednesday (12/03), the College launched its “responsible investment survey,” which appeals for students to “directly inform” its policy on investments.

The survey was launched by the College’s working group on responsible investment, which was set up by Provost Gillian Tett following a series of demonstrations by student group King’s College for Palestine (KC4P) last year.

The group initially protested an event hosted by Tett in May. The panel included the director of GCHQ, whom protesters accused of having “reprehensible involvement in the genocide on Gaza”.

Following further protest, Tett commissioned a review of “responsible investments” after KC4P tabled a paper urging the College to cut ties with the arms industry entirely.

In the email advertising the survey, King’s students were told that this initiative is a “critical part” of the review.

“Over the last six months, a working group of students and fellows has been developing a more structured and participative approach to how the College invests its endowment,” the email said.

Students were also told that similar surveys will be carried out “every few years,” in a bid to “ensure [that] King’s investments always serve the College’s best interests”.

The survey includes questions about which industries students believe the College should pull investments from, and about whether investments in such companies would “negatively affect [their] relationship with the College”.

KC4P are campaigning for students to use this survey to show support for arms divestment. The group told Varsity: “This is a crucial opportunity for substantive change in the fight for divestment.”

“We urge King’s students, fellows and staff to say no to arms and occupation,” they said.

The group’s guide for students responding to the survey claims: “It is vital that anyone who cares about ending the College’s complicity in the occupation of the Palestinian people […] demonstrates their support by filling out this survey.”

Though the survey has been initially shared with students, it will be opened up to fellows and staff later this month, Varsity understands.

In June, Varsity obtained College council minutes in which Tett said that she wanted King’s to “decide as an organisation the investment approach the College wants to take” on factors including the climate and human rights.

Other council documents revealed that the King’s Investment Committee was considering “alternative products that ‘screen’ for certain kinds of company,” including in the “defence, energy, and tobacco sectors”.

A 2023 Varsity investigation found that King’s had £2.2 million indirectly invested in arms and defence and had increased its shares in the industry in recent years.

The College’s investment policy, dated July 2024, states that King’s has no “direct investments in the fossil fuels, arms, tobacco, or gambling industries”.

“The College is currently considering the best ways to give effect to ethical and social responsibility considerations in managing its investments,” the document states.

Maroof Rafique, Cambridge Students’ Union’s BME officer, told Varsity that Cambridge students have “consistently advocated for ethical investment policies that align with our values of justice and global responsibility”.

Rafique continued: “The fact that King’s College had £2.2 million in indirect investments in the arms industry only reinforces the urgency of divestment. For the divestment to be meaningful, the College should move away from having relationships with financial institutions […] which enable violence and oppression.”

“This survey is a crucial opportunity for students and staff to push for substantive change and demand that King’s College ends its financial complicity in human rights abuses,” he added.

King’s College was contacted for comment.