Improving UK universities’ resilience in the face of rising research security threats will require closer integration between academic, industrial, defence and national security objectives. It will also require a cultural shift across government and the university sector.
Research security is ultimately about preserving the UK’s capacity to generate prosperity, maintain national security, and sustain strategic advantage in an increasingly contested geopolitical environment. The challenge is to avoid retreating from international collaboration, which remains essential to scientific excellence and innovation, yet to ensure that openness is accompanied by appropriate safeguards. As this paper has argued, current vulnerabilities stem not only from specific high-risk actors or technologies, but also from structural features of the research system itself.
Addressing these challenges requires an integrated approach that aligns research security with the UK’s broader S&T, industrial, defence and national security objectives. This is important given financial pressures that risk undermining the resilience of higher education institutions. As universities remain central to the government’s long-term ambitions for economic growth, technological leadership and strategic advantage, research security policy must be designed to strengthen – rather than inadvertently weaken – the sector’s capacity to deliver these objectives.
This means enhancing universities’ capability to manage risk, improving government support and intelligence-sharing, adapting regulatory mechanisms, and strengthening the role of public funders as providers of supplementary assurance. It also means ensuring that the incentives shaping university behaviour are consistent with national priorities. Equally important is fostering a durable culture of research security across the university sector, in recognition of the reality that many of the most significant risks emerge through people and evolving collaborative networks rather than through discrete transactions or formal arrangements alone.
Looking ahead, the UK’s research security framework should be designed not only for today’s threat environment but for a range of plausible geopolitical futures. While more intrusive measures may not currently be necessary, proportionate or feasible, the government should nevertheless establish clear trigger points and contingency plans for how the research security framework should adapt if threats to the UK’s research base intensify. Such measures could include: enhanced enforcement powers; a centralized, intelligence-led clearing house for risk assessments and due diligence; expanded security reviews of patent filings and research publications; reform of the National Security and Investment Act to include mandatory notification of the acquisition of assets such as IP in sensitive S&T fields; and dedicated regulatory oversight of research security practice.
Enhanced measures could include the establishment of secure research zones, where access would be restricted to appropriately security-vetted researchers. Participation could be subject to additional conditions, such as requirements (where justified on national security grounds) for researchers to notify or obtain approval from the UK government for travel to higher-risk jurisdictions. Building this flexibility now will help ensure that the UK can continue to protect its research system – and with it, the national security, prosperity and strategic advantage on which the UK’s future depends.
