The U.S. Government Accountability Office has released a report titled, “CHINA Efforts Underway to Address Technology Transfer Risk at U.S. Universities, but ICE Could Improve Related Data,” concerning recommendations to better track visiting scholars, students and researchers from outside the United States. The published report is incomplete because some of it has been deemed too sensitive to disclose. Notably, the published report points to a failure of law enforcement agencies, including Immigration, Customs and Enforcement (ICE), to track certain relevant data concerning the risk that unlawful technology transfer may occur involving federally funded university research. The report is available, here, and states, in part:
According to federal internal control standards, management
should use quality information that is, among other things, complete and
accurate to achieve the entity’s objectives, and process relevant data into
quality information within the entity’s information system. The U.S. government
has identified research in sensitive fields, facilities and locations of
expected work, and employment and employment history as potential risk factors
for the transfer of technology. Improving the completeness of employer
information in SEVIS could enhance ICE’s management of the OPT program and
provide the U.S. government with more information on who is employing foreign
students and, therefore, whether certain individuals may have access to
technology.
Since 2016, oversight bodies at the five U.S. grant-making
agencies in our review—NIH, NSF, NASA, DOD, and DOE—have investigated an
increased number of researchers for potential violations related to the
security of federally funded research at U.S. universities, according to agency
data. These include grant fraud and compliance violations related to failures
to disclose potential sources of foreign influence on researchers, such as
other support for individual research endeavors, significant financial
interests, or other conflicts of interest. These investigations have often
involved undisclosed affiliations with the PRC, such as receiving PRC research
funding. However, agency officials emphasized that decisions made to initiate
an investigation or during the course of an investigation are not based on
individual characteristics such as nationality or visa status, which is
information that none of the five agencies in our review consistently collect.
Agency data indicate that investigations have resulted in agency and university
actions to address research security risks related to foreign influence.
However, little information is available about civil and criminal cases related
to potential transfer of university research because DOJ does not
systematically track all cases specific to U.S. universities or federal grant
funding. Further, officials from grant-making and law enforcement agencies we
spoke with noted that it is challenging to assess the more general extent and
negative impact of technology transfers to foreign countries. Amid agency
efforts to address this type of national security threat, university faculty,
officials from university and Asian and Asian-American associations, and others
have highlighted the importance of balancing protection of federally funded
research against potential adverse effects of these efforts. . . .
As a result of investigations initiated from 2016 through
2021, grantmaking agencies—particularly NIH, which accounted for about 73
percent of the individuals under investigation in our review—addressed a number
of violations that could threaten the integrity of university research. As of
October 2021, 94 percent of NIH investigations into researchers of concern had
uncovered at least one compliance violation that NIH deemed serious, such as a
failure to disclose foreign conflicts of interest (e.g., foreign affiliations,
grant funding, or talent recruitment program participation), according to NIH
data. As a result, NIH reported that at least 76 percent of individuals under
investigation were no longer associated with grant-funded research or other
grant-related responsibilities, primarily through resignation or actions taken
by grant recipient institutions, including termination or exclusion from
grant-funded research. In addition, NIH officials noted that because many of
their investigations remained ongoing, they expected the number of actions
taken in response to violations to rise. . . .
In this context, U.S. agencies and others have identified
factors that indicate the types of foreign students or scholars who may pose a
greater risk of transferring technology from U.S. universities. ICE already
maintains information in its SEVIS database related to several of these
factors, including country of citizenship and level of education. However, ICE
has not completed a required assessment to understand whether it needs to
update SEVIS to better capture information related to students and scholars who
may pose a greater risk for technology transfer. Furthermore, data related to
other risk factors already required in SEVIS, such as employer information, are
incomplete. More complete data, and a better understanding of the information
needed to identify students who present the highest risk for the potential
transfer of university research, could strengthen U.S. government efforts to
identify and assess risks to U.S. research and development.
