Excluding nationalities from research collaboration ‘ineffective’

Research bans targeting particular nationalities are counterproductive, a security expert has warned, amid reports that an Australian university campus has forbidden its academics from collaborating with Chinese researchers.

Brendan Walker-Munro said that while universities needed to take research security “very seriously”, the approach reportedly adopted by UNSW Canberra – a capital city campus of UNSW Sydney – was ill advised.

“These types of nationality bans do not work,” he said, citing the China Initiative, a US Justice Department crackdown on perceived Chinese spies in American research. It was abandoned in 2022 amid failed prosecutions and accusations of racial profiling.

“Just saying we will not collaborate with China…sends some very dangerous messages. The nationality of the individual shouldn’t necessarily matter. What matters is their risk level.”

UNSW Canberra hosts the Australian Defence Force Academy, which educates military recruits. According to the ABC, a recent internal message advised that collaborative research projects involving “academics affiliated with Chinese universities” would “not be supported”.

ABC defence correspondent Andrew Greene said the directive was apparently designed to limit visits from Chinese academics to the Canberra campus, “which is in itself a military base”. The message does not appear to affect UNSW staff elsewhere.

UNSW did not confirm or deny the reports, but said it took its security and compliance obligations “very seriously”. The university helps its academics “risk manage” collaborations with “partners considered high-risk or involving critical technologies” and requires them to “regularly disclose their individual foreign affiliations”, a spokeswoman said.

Dr Walker-Munro said that if the ABC reports were correct, it would be the first known instance of an Australian university “engaging in a nationality ban”.

He said that while China was “very active” in espionage, foreign interference and intellectual property theft, its intelligence service could circumvent the UNSW Canberra ban by enlisting academics to collaborate with UNSW’s main campus or another institution with defence ties, such as the University of Adelaide.

It could also gain access to Australian research projects through Chinese academics employed by universities in Australia or allies such as the US.

A senior lecturer in law at Southern Cross University and former head of investigations, enforcement and compliance at several government agencies, Dr Walker-Munro’s research focuses on national security law and its impact on higher education research and teaching.

He said Chinese academics might very legitimately be barred from guided weapons research, for example, but not necessarily projects examining geopolitics or “public domain” security issues.

A recent UK blog warned that “actor-specific” approaches to research security, “where nations and nationality are used as a shorthand for determining risk levels”, could undermine equity, fairness and diversity in academia and ultimately prove futile.

“State actors do not act exclusively through their own citizens,” observed Sapna Marwaha, deputy chair of the Association of Research Managers and Administrators. “Connections to state actors remain a relevant consideration when evaluating new collaborations, but connections are more complicated than just nationality.”

Dr Walker-Munro said it made little sense to impose a nationality ban on China but not like-minded countries, such as Russia and Iran, or even less adversarial players like India, Thailand, Vietnam and possibly Japan.

“We think of them as friendly nations, but if they see a weakness or an opportunity in Australia to get access on some advanced technology, it’s very unlikely they’re going to pass it up.”

john.ross@timeshighereducation.com