A great wall around research: the national security challenge for unis

There are claims unis depend too much on Chinese student fees and do not stand-up enough for Hong Kong students but the big-issue for now is their research-ties with foreign powers (which means China)

Education Minister Dan Tehan tackled all three on RN Breakfast yesterday, making politically sensible points about international education (unis are handling their student numbers) and campus free speech for all (he’s in favour of it).

But he was careful in his comments on research, confirming universities and “agencies” were meeting “to work out best practice guidelines when it comes to foreign interference, when it comes to cyber-security.”

What this is about. “One of the most important things here is that government and the university sector need to work very closely on these issues, we need to put in place clear markers as to what is expected and what the government would like to work with the university sector on,” Mr Tehan said.

This did not sound like “crisis talks,” as news stories described the officers-level meet. Instead, it may be part of the preparation for a previously announced meeting next week of VCs and the minister (CMM August 19). All international research collaboration has to be in the national interest, “and if that means we have to put markers around certain research then that’s what we will do,” Mr Tehan said yesterday.

What it might mean: CMM wonders whether this is the security-establishment making the most of an opportunity.

In July last year the Department of Defence surprised the research community with a supplementary submission to Vivienne Thom’s review of the Defence Trade Control Act. This suggested amending the act, “to allow the Australian Government to more effectively control access to Defence and Strategic Goods List technology and other technology that may be used to prejudice the security, defence or international relations of Australia” (CMM July 13 2018). To the relief of the research community Dr Thom knocked this back in the review. But she, “was persuaded” that DoD have powers to investigate researcher compliance with the Defence Controls Act and refer matters to the Federal Police, (CMM February 15 2019).

What could be next: Overall university groups and science bodies were happy with the Thom Review – which would make it hard to complain if a “compliance investigation” provision turned up in research guidelines.


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