University registration may hinge on research security safeguards

An Australian advisory body is examining whether research security should become a core condition of universities’ registration, in the latest move to shield scientists’ efforts from misuse by malign “actors”.

The Higher Education Standards Committee (Hesc) is deliberating whether research security and national security “governance expectations” should be included in the “threshold standards” that outline the minimum registration requirements for higher education institutions.

The review was initiated after education minister Jason Clare asked the Australian Tertiary Education Commission (Atec) to investigate whether the standards dealt adequately with research security “challenges”. Hesc, which advises Atec, wants to know whether amendments to the threshold standards “are warranted and, if so, how they should be framed”.

A discussion paper says the standards cover governance, accountability and quality assurance of every aspect of universities’ and colleges’ operations but do not “expressly articulate” minimum capabilities to manage research security risks. 

“They do not explicitly reference cyber security, research security or national security considerations,” the paper says. “Nor do they establish specific expectations regarding research security awareness, capability or the management of risks.

“Australian universities operate within an increasingly complex environment. Openness and global collaboration, while essential to academic excellence…generate exposure to foreign interference [and] misuse or compromise of research, data and intellectual property.”

The paper mulls “limited” amendments to part A of the threshold standards, which set out the minimum requirements for all higher education institutions. “Enforceable” criteria for universities may also be embedded in part B of the standards, which outline the requirements for different types of institutions.

Hesc is seeking views on how to ensure that research security standards are “proportionate to the diversity, scale and risk profile of higher education providers”, the paper says. The committee also wants advice on “practical considerations” including regulatory impacts, compliance burden, support requirements and “any unintended consequences”.

The consultation, which closes on 7 September, is taking place against a backdrop of developments including the tightening of the Foreign Relations Act, the cancellation of several universities’ foreign partnerships and Clare’s vetoing of 13 Australian Research Council (ARC) grants on “security, defence or international relations” grounds.

Research security also falls under the purview of the Defence Trade Controls Act, the Security of Critical Infrastructure Act and the University Foreign Interference Taskforce (Ufit), which is undergoing a “strategic refresh” after its Guidelines to Counter Foreign Interference were revised in 2021.

A separate report has drawn attention to dozens of potentially concerning ARC grants awarded since the Ufit guidelines were updated.

ARC-funded researchers have continued to collaborate with peers from institutions that have “direct and visible links” to the military, defence, law enforcement or intelligence organs of unfriendly nations, according to report author Brendan Walker-Munro, a research security expert with Southern Cross University.

Walker-Munro said collaborative efforts had also been maintained with entities in Iran and Russia, despite assurances that they would stop, while multiple funding sources – and collaborators’ multiple affiliations – sometimes obscured the true “owner” of the research.

The report cites cases in which ARC-funded research has been published by academics working for institutions affiliated with China’s People’s Liberation Army, even though the grants listed no Chinese entities among the collaborating organisations.

One “case study” involves ARC-funded research into “insect-inspired flapping wing robots”, conducted with Chinese collaborators whose institutions subsequently developed a mosquito-sized drone for “covert military operations”.

Other examples involve research into hypersonics, digital communication security and three-dimensional face recognition, conducted with collaborators from universities flagged by an Australian thinktank for their contributions to Chinese defence and state surveillance.

Walker-Munro denied any suggestion that the Australian researchers or their institutions had done anything unethical, illegal or “unacceptable”. He said he had highlighted the examples “to provoke reflection, analysis and discussion of meaningful solutions”.

“Australian universities do not seem able to properly monitor the work [of] their scientists, engineers and researchers,” his report says. “A small but persistent minority of Australian researchers seem to remain stubbornly ignorant of the realities of foreign interference, espionage, theft of intellectual property…or other exercises of malign influence by autocratic or authoritarian regimes.”

Walker-Munro advocates a “holistic framework” for vetting Australian research collaborations, adapted from mechanisms to prevent money laundering and the financing of terrorism. “Scholars in high-risk fields should be subject to regular checks…that their collaborative works are not compromising Australian security, especially where those works are funded by Australian taxpayers,” the report says.

“The alternative is that Australia will continue to subsidise and underwrite the development of advanced military and security technologies by nations that do not necessarily share Australia’s national interests.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com