More than half of academics and university leaders who responded to a survey expect to spend more time on research security in the coming years as concerns about international collaborations grow.
Digital Science’s survey of 380 academics, researchers and university staff from 70 countries revealed that security is a key concern for the global research community, with 58 per cent of respondents expecting to have to dedicate more time to research security in five years. Forty-five per cent said they already spend more time on research security than they did five years ago.
This change has been spurred by tense geopolitical relations, which have led policymakers in some countries to pay more attention to academic security. In the UK, for example, the former government warned in April 2024 that hostile states are targeting British universities to “deliver their own authoritarian, military and commercial priorities”.
“While open science has been growing, politics have been changing,” said Leslie McIntosh, vice-president of research integrity at Digital Science. “And this is a new environment for this generation and for most of the researchers that are out there right now.
“It takes up time to have this paradigm shift of thinking in a different manner about protection of research ideas, in a global sense, from governments rather than just your competitors as individuals.”
In 2023, a survey found that British universities were spending nearly £11 million a year on research security checks.
However, authors of the new report, Research Transformation: Change in the era of AI, open and impact, say the sector “isn’t adequately equipped” to deal with the challenges these global tensions pose.
“International policy is fast-moving, but few in academia have experience in research security,” they write. “And because the field is still emerging as a professional service, another skills gap has emerged.”
They also identify a “lack of buy-in” from both researchers, who may resent “rigorous checks and balances”, and university administrators, who “may not prioritise risk management when budgets are increasingly tightened”.
Interviewees also suggested that institutions are commonly waiting for something bad to happen rather than being proactive in dealing with the risk.
The authors warn that as ensuring research integrity and credibility becomes more essential, this mindset will need to change.
“If [academic institutions] are going to try to put the onus of responsibility on researchers, I think this is going to fail in in multiple ways, because researchers already are burdened with a lot of responsibility, which takes time away from them being able to think about whatever their topic is that they love,” Dr McIntosh told Times Higher Education.
She said that universities need to decide what the risks are and how they will measure them, while building a trusting environment in which researchers feel supported rather than policed.
The new survey also identified other key concerns among the research community, including skills gaps and bureaucracy threatening the transformative impact of artificial intelligence.
