Report puts academics at core of security-related decisions

A report recently published by the Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills directorate (HK-dir) argues that decisions about international partnerships or collaborations in the context of security-related concerns should be made on a case by case basis and “as close as possible to the affected academic communities”.

Titled Geopolitical tensions and international knowledge cooperation. A qualitative study of experiences among Norwegian researchers (in Norwegian, with an English summary), the report notes that responsibility for achieving a balanced approach between security and openness in international knowledge collaboration primarily rests with research and higher education institutions, but authorities must provide information and predictable frameworks, necessitating collaboration across relevant government bodies.

And while academic staff, as experts in their fields, should be given the right to make decisions about collaboration, strong support from university administrations and leadership is crucial, it notes.

The report, the product of a government mandate issued to the HK-dir in 2023, relies on 43 in-depth interviews with Norwegian academics mainly working in areas that Norwegian authorities define as “sensitive” and-or have partnerships with countries in conflict or countries with which Norway has no security policy cooperation.

As reported by University World News the directorate was tasked to craft guidelines on how scientific staff at higher education institutions should behave when entering into international collaboration with colleagues abroad and notably within sensitive research areas that fall within the new export control law.

The latest study explores how various academic fields are impacted by a more tense geopolitical climate and how staff in particularly affected fields experience balancing academic freedom with security requirements.

Humanities and social sciences

While national and international discussions have largely focused on technology and natural sciences, fields of strategic importance for states' economic and military capacities, the study also investigates how humanities and social sciences are affected by these developments.

However, the challenges reported by the survey respondents vary between academic fields and countries of collaboration.

In technology and natural sciences, the challenges are primarily linked to a few countries, mainly China.

Few report security-related or research ethics issues, though awareness is high that monitoring and espionage may occur. The most challenging aspect of their work is managing export control and licensing requirements for dual-use goods and technologies, the report found.

Because many find the new export control regulations difficult to understand and implement, some collaborations cease, and candidates from countries like China are excluded from positions for practical reasons.

Some respondents said that the best candidates in many cases are coming from countries outside the Western world but that they often have to be excluded from the selection due to the lengthy processing times for licenses and entry permits are incompatible with project timelines. Reduced collaboration and fewer recruits are seen as academic losses.

Informants in the humanities and social sciences reported that the space for academic work has narrowed due to political developments in several countries.

Many of these informants face security and research ethics dilemmas. Security can be an issue not only for researchers themselves but also for partners abroad.

The backdrop is politically sensitive topics that authoritarian states may seek to censor. Informants mentioned adapting research and teaching practices to ensure their own and their partners' safety.

They generally felt that they could justify these adjustments methodologically and ethically. A degree of self-censorship or adjustment of communication was not uncommon, even in Norwegian public discourse. Embassies monitor activities, and the risk of visa denial has a chilling effect, the report found.

Latest case of espionage

Meanwhile, The Barents Observer reported on 21 November a Norwegian student (a Norwegian citizen of foreign descent) registered for a group-based Bachelor Degree in Security and Preparedness arranged by UiT The Arctic University of Norway in the town of Kirkenes close to the Russian border had been arrested by the Police Security Service or PST. The student was also employed as a guard at the American embassy in Oslo.

According to the media report, the 27-year-old man was accused of serious surveillance activity and had been at least twice in recent months to Kirkenes where he participated in a study programme with the UiT.

The illegal intelligence gathering was shared with Russia's foreign intelligence service and Iran, according to court documents.

The report said the Oslo District Court sided with the police attorney in a ruling to hold the accused in custody for four weeks as further investigations are carried out.

“He accepts that there is suspicion of intelligence activities for foreign powers, but there is still a lot of law- and fact-finding to this case,” the man’s lawyer told The Barents Observer.

According to the UiTs website, the degree in which the man was enrolled is intended to teach “local and national preparedness and perspectives on how international problems might affect security judgements. You learn about risk judgments, the total defence system and the geopolitical and security situation in the Northern areas and the importance of environment and climate changes”.

‘Unwanted attention’

Commenting on the new report in the wake of the student’s arrest, Pro-rector for Research and Development at UiT Professor Jan-Gunnar Winther said: “The report builds on interviews with staff members in the sector that have been facing concrete trade-offs and dilemmas.

“These examples illustrate well the complex balance between security and collaboration. The recommendations that decisions [on collaboration] have to be taken as closely as possible to the involved academic milieus – with good support from the administration and the leadership of the institution – is in line with our way of approaching each single case.

“The knowledge of the Northern areas is of great international interest, and it is therefore natural that UiT The Arctic University can have unwanted attention from foreign intelligence.”

In an online panel discussion organised by HK-dir on 22 November to discuss the contents of report around the formal title of "Academic freedom and the freezing of global collaboration", Winther outlined the measures taken at his university when arranging conferences on themes such as those related to the Arctic where there is significant international interest.

He said when there are participants that the organisers are not sure are attending out of academic interest alone, they inform the other participants and ask them to be careful in their communication.

Winther also said that younger academic staff in the humanities and the social sciences believe themselves to be of less interest to people with suspicious motives, but said, on the contrary, younger academic staff are often of greater interest to potential agents compared with the more established university leaders.

Export control law

Also speaking during the panel discussion, University of Southern Norway (USN) Vice-Rector of Research Professor Heidi Ormstad said in order to support scientists in questions regarding the export control legislation the university had established an export control team that could be consulted when there was a need.

Sebastian Stranheim Karoliussen, senior advisor for information security at USN, told University World News the export control team, made up of staff with expertise in law, project funding, personnel, commercialisation and patenting and security issues, restarted in 2022 after the COVID-19 shutdowns. All members have been trained to understand the export control specifications and to do internal screenings.

The team has monthly meetings and has established routines at USN around export control. Specifically, the team keeps abreast of international and national issues, vets export license applications for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and advises academic departments where necessary on candidates applying for positions.

Stranheim Karoliussen said the team had seen an increase in requests for support in matters related to the export law, sanctions law or other security issues, particularly when it is known that representatives from certain countries will participate at conferences.

“But we have no concrete examples of participants at conferences from the countries we monitor that might have had motives other than academic,” he said.

Asked whether the espionage case at UiT was the “tip of the iceberg”, Kristine Offerdal, director of the Knowledge and Analysis Division at HK-dir, told University World News: “The recent case highlights the importance of collaboration between government institutions and higher education institutions to minimise security risks while safeguarding academic freedom.

“Our latest report is one contribution to support this effort, with the aim of offering insights for both government and educational institutions.”

She added, by way of explanation: “The Norwegian Directorate for Higher Education and Skills is also responsible for ongoing follow-up and annual control of information security in the Norwegian higher education sector.

“HK-dir monitors how the higher education institutions comply with requirements given in national law and sector specific regulations, such as policy for information security and privacy. HK-dir organises annual meetings with the institutions to talk about risk management, including security incidents caused by so-called advanced threat actors.

“Universities and colleges report whether they have been subject to data theft or academic espionage carried out by state or state-sponsored hacker groups (cybercriminal groups that carry out missions for state authorities).

“During the last three years, six institutions reported confirmed espionage incidents to HK-dir, while 12 institutions reported suspected incidents. Another incident received significant media attention in 2022, with an alleged Brazilian guest researcher’s suspected affiliation with Russian military intelligence.

“The case is currently being investigated by the Norwegian Police Security Service.”

Responsible internationalisation

Asked for his perspective on the scale of “unwanted attention” on Nordic universities from foreign powers, Professor Ole Petter Ottersen, who has led two of the region’s most internationalised universities – the University of Oslo in Norway and the Karolinska Institutet in Stockholm – said vigilance was required, but universities could not and should not take the place of the security services.

“We should remain open to international collaboration and knowledge exchange, but at the same time we must realise that our research might be misused, and that misappropriation of sensitive technologies or data might represent a security risk.

“We must also learn from recent incidents and foresee that universities to an increasing extent might be exploited as a platform for undercover activities. Vigilance is required, but universities cannot and should not take the place of the security services,” he stated.

“What is essential is that universities build competence for responsible internationalisation and that this competence is developed throughout the organisation – from the leadership level to the individual faculty and staff. Only with such competence at hand will we be able to strike the right balance between openness and security.”

“We must also accept that while there are risks of collaboration, there are also risks of non-collaboration. We will not be able to address climate change, pandemics, or other human and global challenges without international partnerships based on free flows of knowledge and ideas,” he explained.

He said that securing research security “requires that researchers and higher education institutions be entrusted with this task, in the name of institutional autonomy and academic freedom”.

Different logics

Tommy Shih, associate professor at Lund University, and one of the authors of the 2019 Swedish Foundation for International Cooperation in Research and Higher Education (STINT) report on responsible internationalisation, together with KTH Royal Institute of Technology, the Karolinska Institute and Lund University, said that it is desirable for Norway, a small country, that the academic system is kept open with regards to incoming and outgoing students and researchers.

“It is difficult for a small country to develop its scientific capabilities if too heavy-handed mobility restrictions are implemented. While espionage is a serious issue if proven to be true, there still needs to be a discussion about what the proper responses should be.

“Right now, there are different logics coming into play. On the one hand, the academic freedom and institutional autonomy aspects of research. On the other hand, the hardening geopolitical landscape and increased focus on national security,” he noted.

“Too much focus on either one will lead to simplistic conclusions that will in turn impact the ability to meaningfully manage the portfolio of different goals (for example, research security, academic freedom, and collegiality), research institutions need to consider.

“The work with responsible internationalisation has focused on developing tools and scenarios that aid researchers and university leaders to make research decisions in an increasingly conflicted research environment,” Shih explained.

Checklist

Professor Erik Renström, rector at Lund university and chair of the Swedish Association of Higher Education Institutions’ (SUHF’s) internationalisation committee, gave a comparative picture, referring to the situation in Sweden.

“The Swedish universities have worked systematically for several years to strengthen responsible internationalisation through several different initiatives,” he told University World News.

“Every university works to increase security awareness and especially information security. This takes place through extensive mutual exchange of best practises to systematise the work.

“Nationally, universities with particularly extensive international activities (Lund University, Karolinska Institutet, Royal Institute of Technology, Gothenburg University, Stockholm University and Uppsala University) have for several years collaborated within the Coordinated Assessment for Strategic Internationalisation project to jointly analyse the conditions for international academic cooperation in a geopolitical changing world.

“Another important actor is STINT, founded in 1994 by the Swedish government to internationalise the HEI sector. This work has increased awareness of the various factors that must be taken into account in international collaborations and has been integrated into the work of SUHF.

“A concrete result is the checklist for responsible internationalisation that has been available as a national recommendation for a couple of years.

“International research collaborations are the subject of a government inquiry which will present its proposals shortly.

“SUHF has had an ongoing dialogue with the investigators and believes that the needs of the universities and other state authorities can be covered in a resource-efficient way by strengthening CASI and by linking, above all, STINT, other governmental agencies and the security police to such a function.

“The state investigation is also tasked with offering support to companies, not least smaller startups. How this need is best met requires some in-depth work,” Renström said.