Europe sets out what are ‘safe’ research links with China

European governments and institutions are becoming more aware of challenges and pressures on continuing extensive research collaboration with China, with several countries and the European Union drawing up new guidelines to step up knowledge security and academic integrity, and for protection of academic freedom.

According to a new report by the Leiden Asia Centre at Leiden University in the Netherlands, it is in the interests of European governments and higher education and research institutions to develop guidelines for ‘safe’ and more sustainable research collaboration with China, to ensure the continuation of research collaborations, which are likely to be disrupted by geopolitical developments or national foreign and domestic policies, including security policies.

China-specific guidelines are in the institutions’ interests not only for “the security and the academic freedom of their staff and students, but also in terms of their long-term competitive positions in research and their reputations as institutions”, the paper, Towards Sustainable Europe-China Collaboration in Higher Education and Research, published on 28 October, said.

With the current polarised political climate around China, “scholars in both Europe and China feel it is becoming more difficult to develop collaboration,” according to the paper by Ingrid d’Hooghe, senior research fellow at the Leiden Asia Centre, and Jonas Lammertink, junior researcher at the Leiden Asia Centre. It noted that institutions and scholars are increasingly under pressure to justify their collaborations with China.

Institutions have also been alarmed by recent incidents in Europe involving Chinese scholars, students and the Chinese government, including alleged espionage and some refusals by Chinese academics to share research data gathered during collaborative projects with European universities.

Other problems include academic integrity and academic freedom infringements, which can include dual military-civilian use of knowledge and technologies, and political influence on research; breaches of knowledge security such as undesirable transfer of knowledge, cyber-attacks, and intellectual property infringements; and lack of transparency and reciprocity despite these being written into contracts involving Chinese collaboration.

Growing awareness of risks

Overall, awareness of the risks involved in collaboration with China is growing in Europe, though more so in Germany, the United Kingdom, Sweden, the Czech Republic and the Netherlands than in France, Belgium and Italy, according to the paper. Awareness is also greater among government organisations and China scholars than among other groups within universities, it said.

“In all countries we studied, we saw the awareness growing,” d’Hooghe told University World News. A year or so ago, many countries in Europe seemed barely aware of the risks.

“Some countries have really made a step forward; even those who have not yet published new national guidelines are working on it,” she said.

Need for transparent guidelines

“Transparent guidelines can help institutions and researchers explain to their Chinese counterparts why specific requests or decisions have been made. They are therefore also in the interests of Chinese stakeholders,” d’Hooghe explained.

All the guidelines reviewed in the paper emphasise the importance of upholding academic values and research integrity. Most guidelines also address the use of civilian technologies for military purposes, in repressive practices, or for violations of human rights such as against the Uyghur populations in China’s Xinjiang region.

But guidelines need to be adapted to individual institutions. Universities with extensive research collaboration with China may need a more comprehensive approach than universities mainly engaged in student exchanges. Technical universities may need to focus more on risks of espionage and dual-use of technologies than universities involved in social science collaboration, the Leiden paper notes.

The paper looks at initiatives in eight countries in Europe and the European Commission, looking closely at five of these, and compares them with very comprehensive guidelines published by Australia’s Department of Education, Skills and Employment in 2019; and by Universities UK in the United Kingdom, released last month.

The Australian and UK guidelines cover additional topics such as protection from cyber-attacks, reputational damage and preserving academic integrity in research.

“Current responses in Europe are a mixed bag,” d’Hooghe said, and not all the guidelines either published or being drafted specifically mention China. Nonetheless, “people involved in drawing up country-neutral guidelines said China was one of the drivers,” she said.

China-specific guidelines

China-specific guidelines drawn up by the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK), which represents some 268 German universities, were released in early September and complement HRK’s country-neutral Guidelines and Standards in International University Cooperation, published in April this year citing “necessary and optional courses of action specific to the cooperation with China”.

The Leiden paper notes that the HRK China guidelines are far more extensive, running to 18 pages, than the six-page country-neutral document, “underscoring the argument that a general document does not suffice to address specific aspects of collaboration with China”.

Some 2,900 Chinese researchers currently work in Germany. HRK stated it felt it necessary to draw up guidelines rather than leaving it to government, because of the “increasing state influence on the curricula and processes at Chinese universities and growing curtailment of academic freedom”, which it saw as “hampering cooperation, and in some cases bringing it to a complete standstill”.

Germany’s international intelligence agency has warned about the potential for the transfer of sensitive and strategic technologies to China through Chinese students and researchers. “The debate on China among German scholars has become polarised and, as a result, less open,” the Leiden paper notes.

In the past one and a half years, several universities in the Netherlands have started to develop approaches for safe cooperation with China and foreign partners in general. The Hague Centre for Strategic Studies, a think tank, has published a China-specific Checklist for Collaboration with Chinese Universities and Other Research Institutions, to help assess risks and also focuses on academic freedom and on knowledge transfer issues.

The Dutch guidelines pay attention to data management and digital security and call for collaboration by institutions with the national intelligence services.

Non-country-specific guidelines

Non-country-specific guidelines published by the Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) and titled Responsible Internationalisation: Guidelines for reflection on international academic collaboration, look at how to design collaborations to address risks and how to act when academic freedom cannot be guaranteed in international collaboration.

The Swedish guidelines specifically recommend that actors consider the ways in which academic freedom is affected by how the funding of a project is organised, the Leiden paper said.

The EU has been drafting guidelines on ‘Tackling Foreign Interference in Higher Education Institutions and Research Organisations’, which do not specifically mention China.

“The EU is still working on their guidelines, expected in early 2021 and these will probably be guidelines for the member states with suggestions of how they can help universities and other knowledge institutions to better safeguard academic integrity,” said d’Hooghe, underlining that the EU has no jurisdiction over higher education.

The Leiden paper noted that once finalised, EU guidelines may provide important input and encouragement for EU member states “with less capacity or a lower sense of urgency to develop national guidelines by themselves”.

While the EU considers science cooperation with China important and wants to continue investing in this, it has also experienced problems, the paper noted. These included shortfalls in agreed co-financing from the Chinese side, problems with data sharing by Chinese researchers, issues of research ethics, and intellectual property protection.

Compliance

While German, UK and Australian guidelines state that developments in international collaboration will be monitored and that the documents will be regularly updated, in all cases compliance could be an issue.

“I am a bit concerned that nothing will really change and whether people will really work with these guidelines,” said d’Hooghe. “Universities might feel that, having published them and done some workshops, they have done something, but of course that is not sufficient.

“And as long as everything is up to the scholars to decide whether or not to do something with these guidelines, as long as it isn’t prescriptive, the question is to what extent scholars will adhere to them,” she added, noting a lack of incentives for scholars.

Scholars must also grapple with other dilemmas. The Leiden paper points out that many scholars are worried that guidelines could potentially limit the openness of European higher education and research or they “dread complicated and slow procedures brought about by new rules and regulations”.

Some fear a negative impact on the many sound and fruitful cooperation projects with Chinese partners, the paper said. Some are also concerned that guidelines might increase the risk of discrimination against scholars and students from China, or that they might miss out on valuable Chinese research funding.

Institutions are worried about their autonomy, as well as the financial and personnel burden that developing and implementing measures may bring.

“Cooperation with China is important, but we have to do it in a safer way and in a better way and look at it more strategically. That’s what a large majority of our interlocutors said,” according to d’Hooghe, who added: “Nobody said ‘let’s move away from China’.”