Know your Collaborator – The Short Course

Your Toolkit

University research, including international collaborations, drives innovation, new discoveries, and economic growth.  The ability to interact with the best and the brightest of a particular field combined with academic freedom and open research has made America the destination of choice for research.  The majority of research partnerships, both domestic and international, are transparent and provide mutual benefits.  But other actors, particularly some international governments, militaries, or other groups, can pose threats to the open research enterprise.  According to the Association of American Universities, such threats can include misappropriation of research results and intellectual property, dishonest representations of researchers’ personal interests, suborning of the peer review process, non-reciprocal sharing of information and resources in collaborative relationships, and conflicting commitments of researchers to foreign entities.  This course is supplemented by a resource tool-kit to empower you to know your collaborator.

Know the Risk

International collaborations should always be open and transparent.  A request for the results of the research or any part of the research to be kept confidential that is not for research integrity purposes is a red flag.  The following have also been identified by the Council on Government Relations (COGR) as potential risks with international collaborations:

• Involvement of “countries of concern” as identified by federal agencies or restricted parties that could pose national security and economic competition concerns.
• The possibility that the collaborator is grooming the researcher to participate in a malign foreign talent recruitment program.  Follow this link for more detailed information about interacting with malign foreign talent recruitment programs.
• Potential that exchange of or access to information, particularly sensitive, confidential, or proprietary information could violate the law.
• The potential that the collaborator is trying to exploit the researcher in order to gain access to valuable intellectual property or data.
• The potential for reputational harm to you and your institution if your collaborator is found to have engaged in unethical or illegal behavior or has associations with persons or groups who pose threats to national security.
• The possibility that the collaborator’s home country does not have the same laws and customs regarding academic freedom and ownership of intellectual property and data.

Researchers should be aware that engaging with collaborators who may pose a threat may create risks for securing future funding from federal agencies such as the NSF, the DOD, and the DOE.  These agencies will likely do their own due diligence to research applicants’ relationships including use of AI tools to uncover connections to illicit actors.  Therefore, researchers considering international collaborations should plan to do their own due diligence before beginning the collaboration to make sure your collaborator is who they say they are and not a threat.

Know Your Risk

Not all international research partnerships are the same and neither is the risk involved with them.  Consequently, some researchers need only to do the basic level of due diligence while others will need to do more.  

The following factors increase the potential risk of an international research collaboration:

• Research in a STEM area such as satellites, missiles, rockets, propellants, and energetic materials; military items, services or technologies; or nuclear energy or technology.
• Research involving military technology, particularly with countries not allied with the United States 
• Research involving dual-use technology with both civilian and military applications, particularly with countries not allied with the United States
• Research with a high potential for commercializeable intellectual property
• Research in or with a collaborator from a country identified as a “country of concern” which are China (including Hong Kong), North Korea, Russia, Iran
• Research in or with a collaborator from a country presently subject to an embargo or a sanctions program, which in addition to the above are Afghanistan, Belarus, Burma, Central African Republic, Cuba, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Iraq, Lebanon, Libya, Mali, Nicaragua, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan and Darfur, Syria, Venezuela, Yemen, Zimbabwe
• Research funded or supported by the governments of the above-listed countries.

Basic Due Diligence

All parties engaging in international research collaborations are encouraged to do at least the basic due diligence with respect to their international collaborators.  If red flags emerge during the basic due diligence or one or more of the risk factors are present, you should perform additional due diligence.

1. Is Your Collaborator Who They Say They Are?

• Ask your potential collaborator about their research interests, current and past collaborators, research institutions, and publications.  Review biographical information online.

• Review your potential collaborator’s vita.  Is it readily accessible?  Review their publications and contributions on Google Scholar, Research Gate, or Elsevier.  Is there any information missing from the vita?

• Talk with other colleagues in your field.

2. Restricted Party Screening (“RPS”)

An RPS search will reveal whether the person or their institution has been identified by the U.S government as a potential threat to national security or other security risk.  RPS is done by entering identifying information into a search engine.  It is recommended that you search both the individual and their institution or company.

Your Toolkit

Advanced Due Diligence – A little more

Simply because a person or an entity does not appear on a restricted party list does not mean that the person or entity poses no risk to research security.  Therefore, researchers with any additional risk factors or who discovered concerning information in their basic due diligence should do additional due diligence to vet potential research collaborators.  

Researchers should seek to answer three questions: 1) are the collaborators who they say they are; 2) are their motivations for the partnership clear; and 3) are there any sources of unwanted control or influence in the relationship with a malign talent recruitment group or an unfriendly foreign government or political organization that could pose a threat to national security or an unwanted transfer of intellectual property.  

1. Who Is Your Collaborator and What Do They Do (Part Two)?
   • Review your potential collaborator’s corporate or academic institution’s website.  Who are their clients?  Who else do they collaborate with?  Do they do research for the Departments of Defense for China, North Korea, Venezuela, or Syria (these countries have military end user restrictions)?  Who are the lab directors?  Do they do research in sensitive technologies or technologies that could be used for the military?  You should run collaborators’ and lab directors’ names through restricted party screening to see if any of those persons are restricted parties.
   • Use a map application to find the collaborator’s physical location.  Does it look like a location for a research institution or corporation?
   • Google your potential research collaborator and his or corporation or academic institution.  Look for recent press releases regarding research and research partnerships.
2. Is Your Collaborator and Military End User?
   • Are they restricted parties or military end users of a country not friendly to the United States?  Military end users in Burma, Cambodia, China, Russia, and Venezuela are restricted parties and certain research with these parties is a violation of U.S. law.  
   • Parties and institutions that have been identified as military end users by the Department of Commerce or the State Department will show up on restricted party screening.  But a research collaborator may still be a military end user even if they do not show up in a restricted party screening.  It is up to the researcher top inquire as to whether their potential collaborator from one of the listed countries or their institution assists with military activities.  Researchers may gather some clues from the information-gathering discussed herein. 
   • If you are doing research on military or dual-use technology with anyone in these countries who is a military end user or who you have reason to believe is, reach out to the Office of Legal Affairs to determine if your research area is one of the restricted areas.  Researchers considering collaborating with military end users on other research subjects should strongly reconsider whether to do research with any such collaborator, particularly if the researcher is interesting in sponsored research with the Department of Defense or grants from the National Science Foundation.
   • At this time, China is the most concerning nation in the realm of military end users and involuntary technology transfer.  This database can be used to learn more about Chinese universities and their ties to the Chinese military.
3. What Do the Corporate Filings Show about the Collaborator’s Company?
   • Publicly-traded companies must file detailed corporate documents with securities authorities in order for their securities to be sold to the public.  These documents can also contain information regarding the companies activities.  Some of these databases are publicly available on the internet.
4. What Types of Patents Does the Collaborator Hold?
   • Are the patents that your potential collaborator holds in line with the type of research that you are doing?  Is their work in an area that is particularly vulnerable to involuntary tech transfer?
5. Has the Collaborator or Their Institution or Company Been Involved in Criminal Proceedings?

For additional assistance, please reach out to the Office of Research Integrity or the Office of Legal Affairs

Last updated: 10/15/2024