US-China research collaboration: A call to action

Since the late 1970s, when China started re-opening to the West, Chinese universities have made important contributions to the country’s economic development through global engagement: they have increased research productivity, risen in the world rankings and served as the headwaters for downstream commercial development.

In order to achieve these goals, the Chinese state has given universities substantial autonomy when it comes to global engagement and transnational research collaboration.

It is difficult to reconcile this history with recent arguments that the goal of the Chinese state is to expropriate intellectual property by any means necessary, including through academic research networks. Largely playing by established global norms has strengthened China’s universities in ways that support its goals for national development.

While China is moving aggressively to reduce its dependence on the West in many areas, there are no signs of this trend in higher education. In fact, my conversations with Chinese leaders suggest that collaboration in higher education is seen as an area of stability among many other areas of sharp contention.

The Chinese leadership is asserting more control over many areas of society and economy, and it is doing so through drafting and disseminating a steady stream of written policies and guidelines.

The vast and growing library of policy documents on higher education does not provide direction on the question of international collaboration, suggesting that individual institutions are still being allowed to define and manage the terms of their research partnerships. While it is naive to think that the lack of direction gives institutions complete autonomy, it does suggest that there is space for negotiation and manoeuvre.

There is also concern among academics in the US that research administration on Chinese campuses does not meet the standards of major research universities in the West.

This does not excuse Chinese universities for any transgressions, but it does suggest that the problems with maintaining global research norms can be attributed to a lack of experience and training. The problem is likely exacerbated by pressure on Chinese universities to rise in global rankings, which in turn creates pressure to cut corners in ways that maximise research output.

These historical, political and institutional factors all point in one direction: that Chinese violations of research norms are the actions of single institutions, academic departments and individuals.

My research associate Chad Westra and I did a line-by-line review of appointment letters under the Thousand Talents Programme (TTP), which provides Chinese universities with funding to hire visiting faculty from the West. The lack of consistent language and goals in these letters reinforces our view that there is no national strategy at work; instead, individual institutions are defining the TTP according to their own priorities.

Strengthening norms and standards through collaboration

Closer cooperation between universities in the United States and China can address many concerns over the violation of research norms. The focus of this cooperation should be on the creation and enforcement of standards that are based on transparency, integrity and reciprocity, starting with three broad goals:

• Improving access to Chinese research output. China’s research output has grown exponentially in recent years. The global norm is that academic research should feed into a single pool of knowledge that is widely available through publications, conference presentations and the private sharing of drafts and working papers. The global academic community should take action to ensure that China is contributing to the global knowledge pool.

• Address conflicts of interest and conflicts of commitment. At US institutions, the rules for conflict of interest often follow the honour system, where individual faculty are only required to certify in writing that any outside work does not conflict with their responsibilities to their home institution.

A requirement that any international research collaboration must be covered by a written institutional agreement would strengthen these rules. Just as important, signed written agreements would formally endorse research partnerships, which should ease concerns on the part of individual scholars that their collaboration with Chinese counterparts could be subject to disciplinary action or criminal prosecution.

• Clarify ownership of intellectual property. There are several subordinate questions here, including: (1) how data and other pre-publication information can be shared; (2) how researchers and their institutions will be recognised in publications and other means of disseminating knowledge; and (3) how researchers and their institutions will share intellectual property rights if the research is commercialised.

The intellectual property problem cannot be managed at the person-to-person level of transnational engagement. The best option is to require that all external research collaborations be operated under the umbrella of institutional agreements and that these agreements contain standard language that defines and protects intellectual property.

With these goals in mind, I propose the following steps:

• A national organisation in the United States, in partnership with a counterpart organisation in China, would create a joint commission of US and Chinese universities that would develop a recommended framework, including sample language, for inclusion in transnational research agreements.

• Universities in both countries would agree to adopt the framework. A fully executed bilateral research agreement at the institutional level would be a condition for any research collaboration at the individual level. This would not be limited to participants in programmes like the TTP and it would apply to visiting scholars who come to the US.

• A national higher education organisation in each country would list the Chinese and US universities that have adopted the framework and who are in full compliance, which would be initially defined as certification that all of their written agreements contain the recommended language. Ongoing compliance would be ensured through peer review, the training of administrators and recertification.

Demonstrating results to government

Convening the higher education communities in both countries will only be the first step toward addressing the concerns of national governments in the United States and elsewhere. It will also be essential to demonstrate that the efforts of the academic community are effectively dealing with government concerns.

It is important to remember that concerns over China have deep, bipartisan support across the federal government in the United States, including members of Congress and many of the key agencies in the executive branch. The election of President Joe Biden has confirmed this. With this in mind, the academic community should collectively take this approach:

• Acknowledge the problem. There are genuine areas of concern, although it is rare to find cases of outright theft of intellectual property. The academic community in the US should publicly take responsibility for addressing these problems.

It may be tempting to use this admission as an opportunity to criticise the US government for overstepping its legal authority, but the most likely response is that the academic community does not understand the depth of the problem.

• Document the problem. To our knowledge, there is no comprehensive database of investigations currently underway in the US. (The Department of Justice has information on their website, but we do not know how comprehensive it is.)

We need a list of investigations that are currently open, closed without legal action, disciplinary actions by institutions and cases that have moved on to the prosecution stage. Much of this information is highly sensitive and the organisation that manages the database will have to ensure strict confidentiality.

• Demonstrate results. The recent track record of prosecutions suggests that the US government may be open to a new approach. Although we are handicapped by a lack of information, it appears that many investigations have not resulted in prosecutions.

The cases that have led to successful prosecutions have not focused on intellectual property theft but rather on fraud (for failure to disclose research ties to China) and tax evasion (for failure to disclose income from China). While these are serious violations, they do not directly address the problem of intellectual property theft.

Final thoughts

Based on nearly a decade of working on higher education policy in Washington, my experience is that the federal government is willing to let industries solve their own problems before resorting to regulatory intervention – but only if the industry shows a deep understanding of the problem and a strong commitment to finding a solution.

It is time to start the conversation.

Brad Farnsworth is the former vice president for global engagement at the American Council on Education, a research associate of the Research Universities Going Global project of the Centre for Studies in Higher Education, University of California, Berkeley, United States, and principal of Fox Hollow Advisory. E-mail: brad.farnsworth@foxhollowadvisory.com. Please note that this essay is based on a much longer article, available here.