Under pressure, US universities start the year seeking to curb foreign influence fears

Colleges respond to concern from lawmakers and federal agencies with measures including updated protocols for foreign visitors on campuses

They are becoming ‘much more cautious’ about contractual relationships with ‘foreign entities’

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Universities are under pressure amid federal investigations to root out practices that compromise US research and bills to curb foreign influence. Photo: Xinhua

Published: 7:00pm, 8 Sep 2019Updated: 10:59pm, 8 Sep 2019

America’s universities are starting the academic year amid a fever pitch of concern from lawmakers and federal agencies that they may be conduits of Chinese intellectual property theft and foreign influence, against a backdrop of rising US-China tensions.

Federal investigations to root out practices that compromise American research and bills introduced in Congress to curb foreign influence in higher education have gained steam over the past year, after the National Institutes of Health said US research was the target of “systematic programmes” of foreign influence.

Universities have responded with measures that include offering pre-travel security briefings and providing laptops and cellphones free of sensitive data for researchers travelling to “high-risk countries”, updating protocols for screening and welcoming foreign visitors to campuses, and building relationships with their regional Federal Bureau of Investigation offices.

Toby Smith, vice-president for policy at the Association of American Universities, which represents about 60 colleges, said many researchers and faculty staff returning to campus would find new emphasis on making sure everyone was clear about the policies on accepting foreign funding, signing contracts with foreign institutions, and what students could or could not take with them when they finished working at a laboratory.

“The open environment here has been such that there weren’t any checks or worries about sharing information,” said Smith, noting that protocols had been in place for sensitive materials. “A lot of the research that we do we are going to publish anyhow.”

But that was changing to an extent, as universities were under pressure and becoming “much more cautious” about their own contractual relationships with “foreign entities”, he said.