By Claudia Neuhauser, Associate Vice President for Research and Technology Transfer and Professor of Mathematics, University of Houston, Vice President at HNRMC, and Brian Herman, Professor, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Minnesota, President/CEO

For years, U.S. research universities have benefited enormously from an open research environment that welcomed international students and scholars. The benefits are now overshadowed by the fear of foreign nationals stealing intellectual property and compromising national security. And China is the primary target[i].

China has made no secret out of its aspiration to become a global technology leader with its “Made in China 2025” plan, a 10-year plan to modernize China’s manufacturing industries. After decades of sending hundreds of thousands of Chinese science and engineering graduate students abroad and China’s success in repatriating Chinese scholars[ii], China now has the workforce skilled in smart manufacturing to undertake this transformation and step out of its role as a low-cost manufacturer for consumer goods.

The U.S. cannot lose its reputation as a magnet for international talent. About 39% of the more than 620,000 graduate students and 56% of the more than 45,000 postdocs in the sciences and engineering were foreign nationals in 2016. In some fields, like electrical engineering, these figures are even higher: 72% of graduate students and 74% of postdocs are foreign nationals.[iii]

The open exchange of ideas is an academic principle. Universities rarely allow restrictions on participation and dissemination of research. This openness accelerates discovery, invites scrutiny, and builds trust with society when experts are called to advise policy makers and legislators on controversial topics.

How do we balance national security and economic interests with our need to feed the science and engineering workforce pipelines and the academic principle of open exchange of ideas? This has to be a partnership between the federal government and universities.

First, universities need to raise the level of awareness and educate their research community on the current regulations, in particular, export controls, that prevent foreign nationals from accessing technologies that are important to our national security. The academic research community has become desensitized to the dangers of academic espionage after decades of free exchange of ideas and international collaborations that have built a level of trust among researchers across the globe.

Second, universities must become more willing to accept restrictions on participation in and dissemination of research. The federal government can serve as a model with its layers of classification that could provide both a more nuanced approach to protecting research relevant to national security and guidance to researchers when they need to exercise more caution.

Third, to ensure U.S. technological superiority in areas of national security, we need large and targeted investments for universities to engage in research relevant to national security. Events in the 20^th century brought together government, industry, universities and other research organizations to aid the government in national security and defense. This needs to continue in this century.

Fourth, we need to increase the number of federally funded fellowships for domestic students to make it attractive to continue their education in M.S. and Ph.D. programs in the sciences and engineering instead of finding more lucrative career paths in finance and business. And we need to be able to offer competitive salaries and academic research career paths to those who complete their PhDs and not have them spend years as postdocs on low salaries.

Lastly, we must be mindful of unintended consequences. For instance, Senator Kennedy’s (R) recently introduced a bill[iv] to protect national security by requiring U.S. universities “to obtain a deemed export license before allowing a foreign national […] access to technology controlled under the Export Administration Regulations.”  If passed, this bill could paralyze the U.S. global dominance in research and development by making it impractical for universities to have foreign nationals conduct research in technology areas, and may end up harming rather than helping the U.S. lead the world in technological innovation. To the detriment of the U.S., other countries will welcome those highly-skilled researchers with open arms.

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[i] MD Anderson ousts 3 scientists over concerns about Chines conflicts of interest. Todd Ackerman. April 19, 2019. Houston Chronicle.

[ii] How China is Winning Back More Graduates From Foreign Universities Than Ever Before. Luke Kelly. Jan 25, 2018. Forbes. (https://www.forbes.com/sites/ljkelly/2018/01/25/how-china-is-winning-back-more-graduates-from-foreign-universities-than-ever-before/#138eb0965c1e; accessed on April 15, 2019)

[iii] Survey of Graduate Students and Postdoctorates in Science and Engineering Fall 2016. NCSES Survey. Tables 13 and 34. (https://ncsesdata.nsf.gov/gradpostdoc/2016/index.html; accessed on April 30, 2019)

[iv] S.937 – Protecting American Technologies Act of 2019. (https://www.congress.gov/bill/116th-congress/senate-bill/937; accessed on April 16, 2019)