Think tank calls for a list of high-risk Chinese research collaboration partners

The UK’s research security framework remains “primarily advisory and individually focused,” according to a new report from pressure group UK-China Transparency. The fact that mechanisms such as Trusted Research do not establish “clear restrictions” on collaboration with high-risk partners comes in for criticism in the context of partnerships with research institutions with links to the Chinese state and military – in particular those universities known as the “Seven Sons of National Defence.”

The report argues that more focus is needed in research security on the “institutional formats” which allow knowledge transfer to take place, calling for restrictions on – or at least improved governance – of collaboration types such as joint programmes, research centres, and co-supervision of doctoral research.

Universities are “expected to navigate a complex risk landscape with advisory tools that lack binding force,” according to report author Eugenio Benincasa, a senior researcher at the Center for Security Studies at ETH Zurich.

Scale of collaboration

UK institutions have 19 teaching partnerships with those Chinese universities which have received the highest level of security clearance (top secret) – more, the report observes, than any other country. Russia is second with 10, followed by France with eight.

UK-China Transparency draws comparisons with national research security measures in place in other countries, arguing that the UK has laxer restrictions in place than many international comparators. For example, the USA has placed all of the “Seven Sons” on its list of organisations deemed national security concerns, while the EU has put proposals in place to exclude these PLA-linked universities from aspects of Horizon Europe.

The report recommends the creation of government-backed list of “high-risk foreign research institutions” for the UK, following the lead of the Canadian government’s named research organisations list. The Canadian list is dominated by universities and research institutions in China, with a smaller number of organisations in Iran and Russia.

Other recommendations include pre-travel security briefings and post-travel reporting processes for staff at research-intensive universities who travel to China for work, and the establishment of “relief funding” to support UK institutions which choose to terminate or restructure high-risk partnerships.

Alliance links

The report presents the recent launch of the Defence Universities Alliance in the UK as an example of the government taking steps to “deepen” the connections between academia and national security. But coverage in the Telegraph makes the connection between those universities named as collaborating with Chinese military-linked institutions and those which are founding members of the alliance.

Conservative whip and MP for Exmouth and Exeter East David Reed told the paper that UK universities should be in “no doubt that China is not a trusted partner”. On Defence Universities Alliance membership, Reed argues that the Ministry of Defence “cannot be investing millions to strengthen Britain’s defence research base while universities in the same scheme are collaborating with institutions linked to the Chinese military.”