Summary

Foreign-funded language and culture institutes exist on U.S. campuses beyond Confucius Institutes (CIs)—Chinese government-funded centers established by the Chinese Communist Party to extend the reach of Chinese language and culture and to enhance worldwide opinion of China through offering classes in Mandarin Chinese and highlighting positive aspects of Chinese culture. While CIs are modeled on European cultural programs, including the United Kingdom’s British Council, Germany’s Goethe Institut, and France’s Alliance Française, these public diplomacy initiatives do not bear the stamp of any one British, German, or French political party. They also do not tend to be physically located on, adjacent to, or near U.S. college and university campuses (CRS, 2022).

Regardless of the sponsoring nation, foreign-funded language and culture institutes may pose risks for U.S. host institutions regarding academic freedom, freedom of expression, governance, and national security (Seldin, 2019). This is particularly true if the values of the sponsoring nation do not align with the democratic values held in the United States and if the sponsoring nation is suspected of engaging in activities adversely affecting human rights, academic freedom, freedom of expression, association, dissent, and U.S. national security. To this end, part of what made CIs on college and university campuses especially concerning was the disconnect between the values espoused by the Chinese government and the associated effects on human rights and Chinese students and scholars on U.S. campuses.¹ As stated in the first report (NASEM, 2023), the Committee on Confucius Institutes at U.S. Institutions of Higher Education is not aware of any

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¹ As in the first report (NASEM, 2023), the committee wants to state upfront that when referring to China, this report is referring to the People’s Republic of China, the State, which is controlled by the Chinese Communist Party (CCP), and not to its people, many of whom are invaluable contributors to

evidence at the unclassified level that CIs or other foreign-funded language and culture institutes were ever associated with espionage or intellectual property theft. While incidents affecting academic freedom, freedom of expression, and shared governance did take place, particularly with CIs, the most egregious of these happened at CIs outside of the United States. Sustained interest by Congress and political pressure led numerous U.S.-based CIs to close during the late 2010s, and today only five CIs remain on U.S. university and college campuses.

The committee’s Statement of Task was developed with the Department of Defense (DOD) in response to the FY 2021 National Defense Authorization Act,² which directed the committee to deliver a first report after 12 months that recommends conditions that should be in place for DOD to consider granting a waiver to an institution of higher education, and a second report after 18 months that explores foreign-funded partnerships on U.S. campuses more broadly and identifies implementable practices and principles regarding appropriate operations for academic institutions (see Appendix B for a summary of the first report). DOD’s Confucius Institute Waiver Program,³ established in March 2023, incorporates many of the recommendations presented in the first report, which focused on delineating a clear and transparent waiver process.

This report addresses the second charge and presents a set of findings and recommendations focused on satisfying the remaining components of the Statement of Task. This includes gathering information on other foreign-funded institutes at U.S. institutions of higher education and describing characteristics and features of such institutes; determining characteristics and features of foreign-funded institutes at U.S. institutions of higher education that could be flags for institutions to engage in further deliberation and vetting prior to entering into a partnership; identifying implementable practices for U.S. institutions of higher education to ensure appropriate operations; and continuing exploration of what role the sensitivity of the research conducted on campus should play in determining which foreign-funded partnerships are appropriate. The committee’s recommendations, developed after receiving input from a variety of key individuals and organizations during open committee meetings and building upon the findings and recommendations presented in the first report, are as follows:

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the global scientific enterprise (Albert et al., 2021). The CCP has more than 96 million members as of 2021, while China’s total population is more than 1.4 billion people (Rui, 2022; World Bank, 2023).

² William M. (Mac) Thornberry National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2021, Public Law No. 116-283, 116th Congress, 2nd Session (January 1, 2021), Section 1062 (U.S. Congress, 2021).

³ See https://basicresearch.defense.gov/Programs/Academic-Research-Security/.

Recommendation 1: U.S. host institutions should develop and implement appropriate policies, procedures, and processes to identify, address, and mitigate risks associated with foreign-funded language and culture institutes on campus.

1. U.S. host institutions should create and follow both formal processes and voluntary processes for reporting and handling risks associated with foreign engagements.
   1. This can include a process for the review of funded agreements with foreign language and culture institutes as well as a consultative process for the review of informal engagements such as unfunded research collaborations, visiting scholars, secondary appointments, and adjunct staffing situations.
2. U.S. host institutions should ensure that foreign-funded institutes are formally established Centers or Institutes at the U.S. institution. Doing so would subject the foreign-funded institute to all policies and procedures prescribed in faculty, staff, and student codes, as well as in shared governance documents that ensure that similar units within the university support the key values of American academic institutions, including academic freedom and openness and respectful behavior toward other host institution academic units. If a U.S. host institution is not structured in a way that allows for formal Centers or Institutes, it should develop a structure for oversight and include the details for that structure in the documents governing a foreign-funded institute. These steps will support and enable transparency (NASEM, 2023).
   1. U.S. host institutions should include relevant sections on Centers and Institutes in their institutional handbook or policy manuals.
   2. U.S. host institutions should develop and implement an established, regular review process for Centers and Institutes that would include foreign-funded institutes and would specify the period or frequency of review. This would include external reviews and advisory councils, as required by the institution.
   3. U.S. host institutions should stress test their governance and oversight processes as part of an established, regular review process for foreign-funded institutes. This can identify security weaknesses and allow for corrective actions.
   4. U.S. host institutions should ensure that public statements on academic freedom and freedom of expression are codified in university policy and therefore apply to foreign-funded language and culture institutes.
   5. U.S. host institutions should consider making foreign-funded language and culture institute bylaws and governance documents, including operational and administrative policies and practices, publicly available.

3. U.S. host institutions should establish and operate a research security program that meets and complies with all applicable Department of Defense (DOD) requirements for information, data, physical, and research security and includes elements of cybersecurity, foreign travel security, insider threat awareness and identification, and export control training (NASEM, 2023).
   1. U.S. host institutions conducting $50 million or more of federally funded research per year should be in compliance with National Security Presidential Memorandum-33 (NSPM-33) or subsequent versions of this document.
   2. U.S. host institutions conducting less than $50 million of federally funded research per year should develop and implement equally effective practices.
      1. These institutions should be in compliance with the cybersecurity requirements found in NSPM-33 as delineated in the Confucius Institute Waiver Program.
   3. U.S. host institutions should have appropriate safeguards in place to ensure that foreign-funded institute faculty and visitors who are not university employees have limited or guest access to university computer networks and cannot access networks that store research results and communications. Institutions can satisfy this criterion by developing and implementing a cybersecurity and visitor network access policy under which foreign-funded institute faculty and visitors have limited or guest access.
4. U.S. host institutions should possess full managerial control of any foreign-funded institute. This includes control over curriculum, instructors, textbooks and teaching materials, programmatic decisions, and research grants (NASEM, 2023).
   1. U.S. host institutions should require that foreign-funded institute employees and affiliates are formally associated with the host institution and subject to human resources policies and procedures. Institutions can satisfy this criterion by creating documentation, such as an employment contract or agreement, that the director of the foreign-funded institute is employed by the university with a reporting line to the host institution’s chief academic officer or their designee, and by creating public-facing personnel rosters that clearly state whether the host institution classifies foreign-funded institute-affiliated personnel from the foreign partner institution as either host institution employees or as visiting scholars. Foreign-funded institutes should hire their employees and affiliates in accordance with the host institution’s human resources policies and procedures and subject to corresponding campus policies.

4. 2. U.S. host institutions should ensure that foreign-funded institute curricula, including syllabi, textbooks, and teaching materials, are approved through faculty governance review.
   3. U.S. host institutions should exercise oversight over foreign-funded institute-supported research grants. In addition, universities should utilize conflict of interest, conflict of commitment, and export control protocols that demonstrate university control.
5. U.S. host institutions should ensure that no contract or other written agreement pertaining to creating or operating the foreign-funded institute calls for the application of foreign law to any aspect of the foreign-funded institute’s operation at any U.S. campus of the host institution (NASEM, 2023).
6. U.S. host institutions should maintain appropriate fiduciary and financial oversight of the foreign-funded institute (NASEM, 2023). This may include:
   1. Appropriate submission and review of the annual budget for the foreign-funded institute, including sources of revenue and expenses.
   2. Maintaining documentation of the agreement between the host institution and the foreign government to host a foreign-funded institute (a hard or electronic copy of the original document, including the original version of the agreement in a foreign language, if applicable). This may also include a copy of the Memorandum of Understanding and contract between the U.S. host institution and a foreign partner institution, if applicable.
   3. The host institution should manage the agreement through its sponsored program process and should consider implementing a policy that any financial contribution from foreign or domestic sources supporting the foreign-funded language and culture institute must be treated as a sponsored contract, not a gift, with a deliverable (programming, education, etc.).

Recommendation 2: U.S. host institutions should promote a culture that clearly articulates, ensures, and promotes the core values of U.S. higher education, including academic freedom and freedom of expression, among faculty, staff, and students.

1. This can include affirming or reaffirming principles to protect academic freedom and freedom of expression for faculty, staff, and students and regularly discussing the essential importance of academic freedom both to the U.S. institution of higher education and to U.S. higher education in general.

Recommendation 3: U.S. host institutions should consider the foreign nation they are partnering with, in the event that a partner nation is considered a country of concern. In this case, U.S. host institutions should consider additional vetting to better understand and mitigate possible risks presented by a language and culture institute with ties to such a country.

1. Risk assessments ultimately should be based on behavior or activity.
2. “Countries of concern” are fluid and change over time.

Recommendation 4: U.S. host institutions should bolster the dissemination of information to administrators, faculty, and staff on the process used to initiate and review foreign-funded collaborations.

1. This is a key step in educating faculty and staff as well as cultivating a culture of compliance on campus, not only with respect to foreign-funded language and culture institutes but also with respect to foreign-funded partnerships and engagements in general.

Recommendation 5: Additional research should be conducted in support of developing research security recommendations and implementable practices for institutions that are below the $50 million federal research expenditure threshold and therefore not subject to NSPM-33.

1. Future research security guidelines for institutions below the $50 million federal research expenditure threshold should be reasonable and appropriate, as affected institutions may have limited resources and be unable to shoulder additional expenses or administrative burden.
2. Higher education associations, in particular the American Council on Education, should assist the U.S. government with developing such guidelines.

Recommendation 6: The U.S. government, led by the Office of Science and Technology Policy and the National Science Foundation (NSF), should create or facilitate the creation of a publicly available clearinghouse of research security information and resources that universities can access.

1. The federal government should leverage the NSF Research Security and Integrity Information Sharing Analysis Organization proposed in the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022,⁴ among other organizations, and provide appropriate and sustained resources and staffing.

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⁴ H.R. 4346 – Supreme Court Security Funding Act of 2022, Public Law No. 117-167, 117th Congress (August 9, 2022) (U.S. Congress, 2022).

2. To more effectively protect U.S. research, the federal government should empower frontline researchers as partners. This will require supporting security-informed decision-making by faculty and staff and relying less on mandates and punitive tactics (Flagg and Arnold, 2021).

Recommendation 7: The U.S. government should develop a harmonized, consistent approach across federal agencies for the reporting of foreign gifts and contracts by U.S. institutions of higher education.

1. This is a key step in clarifying and streamlining requirements and reducing administrative burden both for the U.S. government and for U.S. institutions of higher education, with the potential for increasing compliance (Mervis, 2020).

Recommendation 8: Higher education accrediting bodies should subject foreign-funded language and culture institutes at U.S. host institutions to review as part of the accreditation process.

1. Higher education accrediting bodies should pay particular attention to academic freedom, control of the curriculum by faculty, and ensuring that the foreign-funded language and culture institute is subsidiary to university governance.

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