Insights
Foreign Influence: Actions the Government has Taken to Date
Why foreign influence matters
As tensions between the U.S. and various foreign governments increase, accusations of academic espionage by foreign-supported researchers at U.S.-based research institutions are on the rise. The NIH, NSF, DOE, and other agencies are increasingly warning institutions of researchers who have not disclosed foreign associations in compliance with grant funding regulations and other laws. The government continues to initiate enforcement actions and we expect this to increase in frequency and scope during the coming months.
As a result, research and academic institutions in the U.S. need to be ever more vigilant to mitigate the loss of federal funds, intellectual property assets and exposure to enforcement actions.
Actions the government has taken to date
- Beginning in 2018, the U.S. Government made public a series of coordinated investigations into foreign influence in government-funded research
- Government concerns include: theft of intellectual property funded via U.S. government grant dollars; foreign government agents exploiting academic freedom in the U.S. to conduct “academic espionage”
- Grants from the following federal agencies have been subject to heightened scrutiny:
- National Institutes of Health
- National Science Foundation
- Department of Energy
- Department of Defense
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Department of State (immigration / visa controls) and Department of Commerce (export controls) also engaged in heightened review of research-related activities