Overview
Both the executive and legislative branches of the federal government have recently issued guidance and reports discussing the perceived danger of collaboration with foreign actors in the higher education research space. These pronouncements reinforce the Trump administration's continued prioritization of reducing foreign influence on US scientific research at institutions of higher education (IHEs).
Department of Education and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence's National Counterintelligence and Security Center's Guidance on Research Exchange with Foreign Actors
On August 25, 2025, the Department of Education and the Office of Director of National Intelligence's National Counterintelligence and Security Center, in partnership with other agencies,1 issued a bulletin titled "Safeguarding Academia: Protecting Fundamental Research, Intellectual Property, Critical Technologies, and the US Research Ecosystem."2 Two one-page reference guides accompany the bulletin: one directed to IHEs and the other directed to individuals. The bulletin and accompanying guides (together, the "Guidance") state that foreign threat actors are increasingly exploiting the openness with which scientific researchers share ideas and collaborate. In response, the Guidance collectively describes the risk environment, recommends mitigation strategies, and provides instructions to institutions regarding reporting requirements.
Concerns Regarding Risks of Scientific Exchange with Foreign Actors
The Guidance identifies foreign targeting of talent, emerging technologies, and other research as the primary threat to national security in the realm of technological research. In particular, the Guidance identifies artificial intelligence, machine learning, quantum technologies, semiconductors, optics, hypersonics, energy systems, telecommunications, military/defense, genetics, and biotechnology as targeted fields.
Regarding talent, the Guidance addresses both the general recruitment of talent from abroad and the recruitment of talent for espionage purposes specifically. It discusses the potential impact on American "values, security, and competitiveness" if individuals are not contributing their skills to US institutions (i.e., by taking their know-how to another country). It further notes that foreign institutions may poach US talent with promises of resources and opportunities, and that individuals "could find their work co-opted and potentially misused by authoritarian governments for purposes that contradict the principles of academic freedom, human rights, or global peace."
The Guidance also addresses the recruitment and use of students at US institutions for foreign espionage. It cites examples of both foreign agents posing as students to collect information on US peers or target dissenting foreign peers, as well as US students recruited to act as foreign agents.
Additionally, the Guidance notes that although association with foreign talent recruitment generally is not illegal, "potential participants and their employers should be aware of legal issues that may arise . . . including violation of export-control laws, economic espionage, or violation of conflict-of-interest policies." Individuals participating in foreign talent recruitment may also be denied participation in federally funded research. Further, "[f]ailure to disclose affiliations with [foreign recruitment] plans may violate US laws and create risk of criminal prosecution for intellectual property theft or the misuse of grant funds." The Guidance cites two examples of illegal failure to disclose an affiliation with foreign talent recruitment. The first is a West Virginia University professor who pled guilty to federal program fraud in connection with his collection of his university salary while purportedly on parental leave when he was instead conducting research in China. The second is a Harvard University professor who was convicted of lying to federal authorities and failing to report income he received from a Chinese university. (In 2022, Steptoe secured an acquittal on behalf of MingQing Xiao, a mathematics professor at Southern Illinois University at Carbondale, on similar charges arising from his alleged non-disclosure to the US National Science Foundation of ties with China-based universities.3)
The Guidance also describes the administration's concern with US institutions' non-disclosure of foreign research collaborators, particularly the non-disclosure of foreign funding for research that is the same as or similar to research also funded by the US government. For example, the bulletin describes a scenario in which a principal investigator may receive US government funding while undisclosed researchers working under that investigator may receive undisclosed foreign funding or participate in undisclosed foreign collaborations related to similar research. The bulletin cites three 2024 cases in which US universities paid fines resulting from their failure to disclose foreign funding when a researcher sought or received US government funding.4
The Guidance's Recommendations for Institutions and Individuals
To mitigate risk, the Guidance recommends that institutions employ internal controls, including evidence-based security practices generally and securing research specifically by encrypting data, using multi-factor authentication systems, limiting remote log-in, blacklisting foreign IP addresses, and restricting the use of personal devices. It also recommends that institutions provide researchers with the resources to conduct due diligence on collaborators, including understanding funding arrangements, and to assess whether their work is subject to export controls or other legal requirements. The Guidance emphasizes that institutions should disclose researchers’ foreign affiliations and funding sources.
Individuals should assess whether their research contains any material subject to intellectual property protection or could have a secondary use that may interest a foreign government. Individuals should also consider segregating research to protect it from unauthorized transfer. Furthermore, the Guidance recommends that individuals traveling abroad sanitize and/or encrypt their devices prior to travel. Individuals should take into account that traveling with commercially available encryption technologies can itself create export control violations if not properly considered.
The Guidance further instructs individuals on how to recognize foreign "elicitation" through both personal and cyber contacts. It provides, for example, a case of a Chinese student associated with a Chinese military institution seeking information regarding an aerospace engineering professor's research. It also describes international expert network companies that may seek non-public information from contracted experts, including experts with security clearances, without disclosing their client.
Finally, the Guidance reminds cleared academic institutions that they are required to report "suspicious contacts, behaviors, and activities in accordance with Code of Federal Regulation (CFR) 32 Part 117" to the extent that they work with classified information.
House Select Committee on China and Committee on Education and the Workforce Issue Joint Report on Higher Education Partnerships With Chinese Universities
On September 12, 2025, the US House of Representatives' Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, led by Chairman John Moolenaar (R-MI), and the Committee on Education and the Workforce, led by Chairman Tim Walberg (R-MI) (the "Committees"), jointly issued their majority staff report, Joint Institutes, Divided Loyalties: How the Chinese Communist Party Exploits US University Partnerships to Empower China's Military and Repression (the “Report").5 The Report discusses the Committees' additional findings and recommendations since the release of their prior joint report, CCP on the Quad: How American Taxpayers and Universities Fun the CCP's Advanced Military and Technological Research ("CCP on the Quad") in September 2024.6 The Report focuses on two issues: academic partnerships with China and foreign funding reporting requirements.
Academic Partnerships with China
In last year's CCP on the Quad report, the Committees found that research at IHEs fuels China's military ambitions, primarily through research collaboration and joint institutes. The Committees' new Report finds that since 2014, over 8,800 US government-funded research papers have Chinese co-authors, including Department of Defense-funded research on AI, microelectronics, advanced materials, space and aerospace, and military-use technologies like hypersonics, nuclear physics, and directed energy. The Report claims that these joint research efforts "enabled major PRC advancements in nuclear technology, artificial intelligence, robotics, and quantum computing." The Report also finds that "joint institutes," collaborative academic organizations jointly created by American and Chinese academic institutions, are significantly controlled by the Chinese counterparts and serve as "key technology transfer points" that advance China’s military to the US’s detriment.
During the Committee’s investigation and release of the CCP on the Quad report, the Committees issued formal oversight letters to 21 IHEs with joint institutes and launched investigations into nine of those IHEs. The Report notes that since the launch of the Committees' investigations, eight of the IHEs under investigation—all but Duke University—closed their joint institutes. The Report lists thirteen IHEs that the Committees identified in the CCP on the Quad report and have determined are still operating joint institutes. Additionally, the Report identifies a number of IHEs that have joint degree programs or partnerships with Chinese academic institutions that "create national security risks" and "when delivered at scale—grant sustained access to US expertise, content, and institutional resources." The Report emphasizes unequivocally that "[t]hese partnerships must end."
To continue combating the concerns raised in the Report, the Select Committee has launched investigations into Chinese-linked scholarship programs and the alleged exploitation of student visa pathways. The Report also notes that Select Committee Chairman John Moolenaar and Education and Workforce Committee Chairman Tim Walberg (the "Chairmen") recommend that the Senate pass the House-passed Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation Act of 2025 (SAFE Research Act). The SAFE Research Act, as passed by the House, (1) prohibits federal STEM research funding to researchers who collaborate with foreign adversary-controlled entities that pose a national security risk, (2) prohibits Department of Defense funding to universities that partner with foreign adversary-controlled entities that pose a national security threat, and (3) requires enhanced disclosure of foreign adversary collaborations and affiliations.
Foreign Funding Reporting Requirements
Section 117 of the Higher Education Act requires IHEs that receive federal financial assistance to disclose semiannually to the US Department of Education any gifts from, or contracts with, a foreign source that alone, or in the aggregate, are valued at $250,000 or more in a calendar year. The Report emphasizes the importance of Section 117 reporting and points to IHEs with joint institutes as potential under-reporters.
As noted in the Report, Section 117 enforcement has increased with the Trump Administration. In April 2025, the Trump Administration issued Executive Order 14282, "Transparency Regarding Foreign Influence at American Universities," which instructs the Secretary of Education to take steps to increase transparency in foreign funding reporting and to increase enforcement of Section 117. Section 117 enforcement responsibilities have also been moved from the Office of Federal Student Aid (FSA), to which the Biden Administration moved Section 117 enforcement, back to the Department's Office of General Counsel. The Trump Administration has also opened new Section 117 compliance reviews into four universities: Harvard, University of California, Berkeley, University of Pennsylvania, and the University of Michigan.9 This is a stark increase from the zero Section 117 investigations opened during the Biden Administration.
In addition to the steps already taken by the Trump Administration, the Chairmen also urge the Senate to pass the House-passed Defending Education Transparency and Ending Rogue Regimes Engaging in Nefarious Transactions Act (DETERRENT Act). As passed in the House, the DETERRENT Act, inter alia, (1) lowers the foreign gift reporting threshold to $50,000 and $0 for specific countries, including China; (2) requires disclosure of foreign gifts to individual staff and faculty; and (3) implements consequences such as fines and loss of funding for non-compliant reporting.
Takeaways
The Guidance and the Report, as well as the Committee and Trump Administration investigations, the executive action, and the House-passed bills discussed in the Report, highlight the increased scrutiny that IHEs currently face.
We recommend that IHEs review their internal controls, increase due diligence of foreign partners, ensure compliance with Section 117 disclosure and other reporting obligations, and increase training for faculty and staff, particularly those with affiliations with or collaborators at foreign institutions.
Also, continuing the trend from the first Trump administration, IHEs should continue to stay on top of reports of “other support,” financial conflicts of interest, and foreign components of federally funded work. Standards in these areas set forth in financial conflict of interest regulations, the NIH Grants Policy Statement, NSF's Proposal & Award Policies & Procedures Guide (PAPPG), similar financial assistance policies, and less formal notices can be subject to sudden change and have undergone various new interpretations over time. Federal funding is currently being frozen for a variety of reasons, and noncompliance with foreign research rules could easily lead to consequences with a broad financial impact across an IHE. Steptoe will continue to monitor developments in this area and is available to address any client questions or concerns that may arise.
1 Partner agencies include the National Science Foundation (NSF), the National Institute for Standards and Technology (NIST), the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the US Army Counterintelligence Command (ACIC), the Air Force Office of Special Investigations (AFOSI), the Defense Counterintelligence and Security Agency (DCSA), and the Navy Criminal Investigative Services (NCIS).
2 https://www.dni.gov/index.php/ncsc-features/2762-safeguarding-our-future
3 https://www.steptoe.com/en/news-publications/steptoe-secures-favorable-decision-for-professor-mingqing-xiao.html#:~:text=Steptoe%20%26%20Johnson%20LLP%20secured%20a%20victory%20for,dismissed%20one%20related%20count%20of%20making%20false%20statements.
4 Although the Guidance did not identify the universities, the three cases involved the University of Maryland at College Park, Research Foundation of the State University of New York, and the University of Delaware. See https://www.justice.gov/usao-md/pr/university-maryland-college-park-agrees-pay-500000-resolve-allegations-it-failed; https://www.justice.gov/usao-ndny/pr/research-foundation-pays-313574-resolve-claims-university-research-scientist-failed; https://www.justice.gov/usao-de/pr/university-delaware-failed-disclose-professors-foreign-government-ties.
5 https://edworkforce.house.gov/uploadedfiles/joint_institutes_report_final.pdf.
6 https://selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/sites/evo-subsites/selectcommitteeontheccp.house.gov/files/evo-media-document/2024-09-23%20Research%20Security%20Report.pdf.
9 https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-initiates-records-request-harvard-university-after-discovering-inaccurate-foreign-financial-disclosures (Harvard University); https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-returns-section-117-foreign-funding-enforcement-office-of-general-counsel-announces-investigation-uc-berkeley (University of California, Berkeley); https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-opens-foreign-funding-investigation-university-of-pennsylvania-after-discovering-inaccurate-and-untimely-foreign-financial (University of Pennsylvania); https://www.ed.gov/about/news/press-release/us-department-of-education-opens-foreign-funding-investigation-university-of-michigan (University of Michigan).
