A BRITISH university has agreed to train engineering students from a notorious Iranian nuclear research centre in an attempt to plug a hole in its finances.

Birmingham University will this September receive the first batch of 60 students from Amirkabir University in Tehran. Amirkabir has been accused by intelligence agencies of operating as a front for the secret purchase of nuclear technology by Iran.

The scheme, devised by Birmingham to plug a predicted £800,000 deficit, may be forced to close if the United Nations imposes sanctions against Iran.

Mark Fitzpatrick, a senior fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said: “Any kind of technical exchange with organisations that are involved in Iran’s nuclear or missile work would likely fall to a cut-off at a later stage.”

The Iranian university has helped develop technology used in the manufacture of nuclear warheads, and its engineers are carrying out research into missile guidance systems.

The engineering department at Birmingham struck the deal, worth up to £700,000 a year, after other overseas students failed to turn up. Universities earn three times as much in fees from overseas students as from their UK and EU counterparts.

Under the scheme, the Iranians study for two years in Tehran, then finish their degrees in Birmingham after completing military service.

Birmingham offers postgraduate courses in reactor technology, but the university insists that the Iranians will be working in a separate department and will have no access to cutting-edge expertise. It said it was unaware of its partner’s nuclear role.

Amirkabir has repeatedly been accused of helping to develop nuclear weapons. Eight months before Birmingham signed the deal, a report by the International Atomic Energy Agency said rotors for gas centrifuges, used in production of highly enriched uranium for warheads, had been tested there.

The resumption of work on uranium enrichment is at the centre of the current row between Iran and nations including Britain and the US.

Engineers at Amirkabir are also involved in missile development. Their department’s website says research topics include “missile stability, guidance and control”.

Exporters have been warned by a number of governments against trading with the university because goods could be used in any nuclear weapons programme.

The German government is reported to have named it on a warning list sent to exporters in 2002. The following year the Australian defence minister blocked the sale of a mass spectrometer to Amirkabir.

Engineering research at the university has been partly funded by the Atomic Energy Organisation of Iran (AEOI). Last June President George Bush ordered the freezing of all AEOI assets in America, accusing it of involvement in nuclear proliferation.

Its former deputy head, Hossein Afarideh, one of Iran’s leading atomic scientists, completed a PhD in nuclear physics at Birmingham in the 1980s. He now insists Iran has a “right to enrich uranium”.

MI5 has been warning for more than 10 years that students from Iran might try to steal nuclear technology.

At least one previous Amirkabir student has been refused a place at Birmingham under a vetting scheme that targets foreign students who might spy for rogue states.

Birmingham University insisted the new students do not pose a security risk. David Weale, admissions tutor for engineering, said: “We will be educating engineering students at an undergraduate level, which is a long way removed from nuclear research.

“They are going to go back to Iran with an ability to start a career as an engineer, but not specialised in any particular branch. I can’t really see any conflict there at all.”

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