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Possible Future Directions for Securing Scientific Research While Preserving Openness in the U.S. Research System

To conclude the workshop, National Science, Technology, and Security Roundtable (NSTSR) members each had an opportunity to provide thoughts on the roundtable’s 4 years of work looking at U.S. national science, technology, and security.

Rebecca Keiser (U.S. National Science Foundation) lauded the role the NSTSR played in productively convening academia, intelligence, and federal science agencies, and said that discussions among these communities must continue with the goal of acting on the problem. Communication across these communities has improved over the past 4 years, and the research community now more widely acknowledges security concerns raised by intelligence and law enforcement agencies. Keiser prefers the phrase “risk management” rather than “risk avoidance,” and we should encourage international collaboration with the goal of managing risk rather than avoiding risk. The science and technology (S&T) community is still unclear about what is, and what is not, allowable in international collaboration, and we must get to a point where researchers are able to feel confident collaborating internationally. She appreciated NSTSR members’ acknowledgment that the U.S. government is being proactive and has made many good steps forward on addressing the challenges of research security.

Thomas Fingar (Stanford University) said that many of the problems that imperil U.S. S&T preeminence (such as adequate STEM education at the secondary level, counterproductive immigration policies, inadequate research funding, and cumbersome regulations) were created by U.S. policy

and are within our control to fix. External threats from bad actors provide additional challenges. Over the past 4 years, dialogue, best practices sharing, education, and attention to the problem have improved the situation. However, to understand what the appropriate remedies are, we must better understand the scale of the problem of theft of research in the university sector. The problem in the private sector is larger in magnitude than in the university sector, Fingar said. The China Initiative leaves a challenging legacy, and there must be regular dialogue and mutual education between universities and law enforcement agencies. While China makes more of an effort to exploit the open U.S. S&T system than other countries, it is not the only country that does so, and excessive focus on China risks losses from our research system to other countries.

Anna Puglisi (Hoover Institution) said that the United States must cultivate a robust S&T system by building an innovation base, developing talent, maintaining big science facilities, and sustaining research funding over time. Puglisi said that having extreme policy reactions, such as closing our doors to China or doing nothing, will impede our ability to compete and will ultimately benefit China. We cannot treat China like any other country because of its policies to crack down on civil society, restrict access to academic publications, and remove academic freedom language from university charters. She said that most U.S. policy actions to date have been tactical and not designed to counter the Chinese system of government, which is inherently different from our own, threatens academic freedom, and manipulates public opinion. Chinese scientists, businesspeople, officials interacting with universities, companies, and research entities must respond to the Chinese government and security services if they are asked for information. China is increasingly intimidating and harshly silencing its critics, including Chinese citizens abroad and U.S. citizens. Because of this, we cannot forget what is at stake.

Jason Donovan (U.S. Department of State) said that the United States must be clear-eyed on the risk posed by China, while we adhere to our values and apply them in a nation-agnostic way when making decisions on trusted international scientific collaborations. The Department of State is working to build international consensus around research security, and there is broad agreement among partners and allies on what values are important for conducting research amongst democratic societies. However, countries have very different science ecosystems and hence divergent policy levers that can be used to influence federally funded research. This makes it difficult to envision a singular global regime which could certify the integrity of all

international research collaboration. The Department of State is introducing research security language in international S&T agreements—including on researcher protections, intellectual property, and data reciprocity—and is focusing international agreements more deliberately on achieving mutual benefit. Speaking personally, Donovan stressed the importance of exercising humility, given that the United States does not always live up to the values we seek to promote internationally, and Donovan believes we must rededicate ourselves to presenting a more compelling vision, calling for a “purposeful dedication of our country’s efforts and resources to solving meaningful challenges that are uplifting for us as a people.”

Bindu Nair (U.S. Department of Defense) said that we must enhance the U.S. fundamental research enterprise, but that it is also critical to translate fundamental scientific research into applications. Such translation is a part of an offensive strategy for competing with our adversaries; however, we do not have sufficient understanding of how to do it effectively. The United States must also harness more research talent, including by attracting more talent from other countries, improving our domestic education system, and providing good projects for students and researchers to work on. Nair identified topics for further research: better understanding of innovation in a nondemocratic society and better understanding of who wins in a system of open scientific research.

Chaouki Abdallah (Georgia Institute of Technology) underscored an assertion made earlier in the workshop by Kelvin Droegemeier: that China is playing to win, and the United States is playing not to lose. He said that China is becoming more confident, and the United States is becoming less so. China exploited the vulnerabilities of the U.S. open scientific system, and one way to counter that is to double down on our strength: our values. We can also counter China’s malign activities by increasing trade with other countries, including by leveraging American soft power. Researchers are being asked to report on international relationships and agreements from 2010, but this is not useful because it was before the China Initiative was instituted. The world has changed, and we must look forward to win this competition, not backward.

Michael McQuade (Carnegie Mellon University) said that societal well-being is inextricably linked to U.S. national and economic security and that the U.S. innovation ecosystem is a tremendous national asset that must be protected. He said the United States must adopt a risk-based approach to decisions about international collaborations by identifying risks, assessing their probability, and analyzing what consequences would result. Negative

outcomes that might result from such collaborations must be included in the analysis of consequences. However, positive outcomes that might be precluded by blocking the collaboration must also be included in the analysis. The United States must diversify our international talent pool, as it is not good practice to so extensively concentrate our source of international STEM (science, technology, engineering, and mathematics) talent in China. Moving forward, the United States must have venues to share expert information on security threats in the S&T ecosystem and must bring the private sector into this dialogue more.

John Gannon (formerly of the National Intelligence Council) said that effective risk management should be prioritized as one of the more urgent issues facing us in the challenge of research security. Security and science stakeholders must work together to implement U.S. policies in an atmosphere of good faith negotiation directed both at containing a real and growing foreign threat and at protecting U.S. research as a vital national security asset. Science and security must partner in a more productive way to share knowledge about the U.S. innovation ecosystem and about the foreign threat to it. Policies must be implemented effectively, which is a challenge in a complicated S&T ecosystem and a complex government. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine should ensure that the observations and insights learned in the work of the NSTSR are disseminated to the larger community, and this effort must be properly resourced and staffed.

Maria Zuber (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) said that the amount of U.S. federal funding for research is in decline, an important context to U.S. global competitiveness and the NSTSR’s focus on federal research funding. In addition to foreign interference in federally funded scientific research, nonfederal research must also be examined. There must be improved engagement between the academic research community and the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). The academic research community must engage with the FBI according to the FBI’s practices as a security agency, and not expect that the FBI will operate according to the open standards and norms of academia. Helpful actions could be taken by Congress on research security, but not all proposed legislation is helpful. It will require efforts by the research community to advocate for productive policies. Restrictions placed on research collaborations should be based on the risk of the proposed collaboration, not merely based on the technology involved. Talent is the greatest supply chain challenge in the United States, and we will not continue to be a world leader without it.

Richard Meserve (formerly of the Carnegie Institution) focused his comments on what remains to be done to address research security challenges. The application of Controlled Unclassified Information restrictions needs to be evaluated so that they are not applied excessively. The private sector composes a large part of the U.S. innovation ecosystem, but the scale of S&T theft by foreign countries in the private sector is not well understood. U.S. statutes relating to research security identify the need to protect both national and economic security; however, it is not clear what is meant by economic security separate from national security, and how economic security relates to research security. There is a need for an adequately staffed and resourced forum to provide opportunities for further interaction among communities with a stake in research security.

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