Insights
Foreign Influence: Grants Related to Basic Research Identified as “High Risk”
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 brand risk, the loss of federal funds, intellectual property assets and exposure to enforcement actions.
Grants related to basic research in the following areas have been identified as “high risk”
- Electronic devices, chips, basic software
- Integrated circuit manufacturing
- Next-generation broadband wireless mobile communications
- High-end machine tools and manufacturing equipment
- Large-scale oil and gas fields development
- Water technology: pressured reactors, pollution and control
- Genetically modified organisms and genomic data
- New drug development
- Infectious disease prevention and cure
- Large-scale airplanes
- High resolution earth observation technology
- Manned spaceflight
- New energy vehicles
- Agricultural machinery / technology