Research security has become a central challenge for universities and research institutions. Science thrives on openness and international exchange — yet emerging threat scenarios demand a growing awareness of the need to protect research findings and scientific infrastructure. We asked three experts from Japan, Canada, and the United States to share their perspectives and assessments.

Academic Freedom as Equal Opportunity of Access

“We identified the problem early on. When the conflict between the United States and China escalated, many Chinese researchers at American universities came under suspicion. For Japan, this was a wake-up call, because approximately 60 to 70 percent of our international doctoral students come from China. Without them, our academic system would barely be able to function. That is why we exclude no one. But we do create transparency: researchers and students must disclose whether they have ties to listed organizations — on both Japanese and U.S. lists. The admissions process remains open. What we manage is the research topic. In sensitive areas of technology, we can place restrictions on it. The person is welcome, not every topic.

Some call this an infringement of academic freedom. I see it differently. Academic freedom means equal opportunity of access, not the right to pursue any research topic one chooses. We can offer a student a different topic. That is not exclusion. The most important insight of recent years is this: research integrity is timeless; it applies always and everywhere. Research security is the opposite. It shifts with the geopolitical landscape. The goalposts keep moving. Anyone who tries to regulate this with rigid legislation will lose the flexibility that universities need. We must be able to respond to changing political realities. And we must do so while holding on to our own principles.”

Professor Takahiko Sasaki heads the Research Security Program at Tohoku University.

Finding the Needles in the Haystack

“At the University of Toronto, we see research security as something that affects the entire research and innovation enterprise: individual researchers, graduate students, administrators, and senior leadership alike. When Canada's policies were first introduced, there was a lot of fear, a lot of chilling. People looked at the rules from a 10,000-metre level and assumed the worst. But as we've become more granular, we're getting much better at distinguishing real risk from appropriate collaboration. 

The way I think about it: the government's concern is really only a few needles in a giant haystack. The more precisely we can identify where those needles are, the more the rest of that haystack remains viable for partnership. There are over 100 organisations on our prohibited list — many of them Chinese — but that is not a ban on working with China. It's a targeted, entity-based approach, not a countries-of-concern approach.

My team and I, we are not decision makers. We have no decision-making power. Our job is to empower individual faculty members — to give them the right information so they can make the decisions themselves. In the grey areas, we show researchers empirically where we see the risks and why. And quite often, our answer is a mitigated yes, not a flat no. There are not that many hard lines. It is about providing information, and then getting out of the way.”

Paul Jarrett heads the Research Security Program at the University of Toronto.

Security Is a Precondition for Openness

“Many people automatically assume that openness and security are in contradiction with each other. I think that's a mistake. The open science environment we have built over the last hundred years is a global commons. And every commons needs agreed rules to remain sustainable. Research security is not a restriction on openness. It is a precondition for it.

It also helps us to globalise in a more responsible, respectful way. Many countries want to share in the benefits of global science. There's talent everywhere. But different countries have different political systems, different norms of institutional governance, different cultures and traditions. We need tools to manage this difference. That is also what research security helps us to do.

There is also a problem with the term dual use. For many it implies that there are just a few technologies we can draw a box around. My position is: virtually everything is dual use. I recently investigated the case of one of China’s top computer vision experts. He received contracts to develop algorithms for tumour detection, funded by international health agencies. The problem is: he also has startup companies with contracts with state security and the military to apply the same technologies. He operates in a system in which he is also expected to serve an authoritarian state.

Instead of thinking like a lawyer, where something is legal or illegal, we should think like an investor: every activity involves some risk, and we have to weigh the risk, the return, the probabilities, and our risk tolerance. Risk is not a switch you flip. It is a spectrum. And once you understand that you can manage collaborations — instead of blocking them across the board.”

Glenn Tiffert is Distinguished Research Fellow at the Hoover Institution and a historian of modern China. He leads Stanford University’s participation in the 67-million-dollar SECURE program.

Klaus Lüber (June 23, 2026)