By CAUT Staff
The Alberta government last month eased up on some of the restrictions it imposed on university partnerships with entities or individuals with links to the Chinese government.
According to Sam Blackett, the press secretary to Alberta’s Advanced Education Minister Demetrios Nicolaides, the province’s universities could resume agreements with China regarding “undergraduate student mobility and transferability,” and “corporate training opportunities,” which are considered low risk to intellectual property and national security.
But the province is still maintaining its 2021 freeze on collaborations with Chinese government institutions including the military.
The Confederation of Alberta Faculty Associations (CAFA) is opposed to the freeze on any non-military related collaboration with Chinese academics because it violates academic freedom and the right of scholars and graduate students to cooperate with Chinese academics.
“It seems apparent that the current provincial government’s zest to generate international security protocols has led them to limit genuine collaboration and educational exchange with academic colleagues in China, based exclusively on country of origin and with no consideration of the actual nature and purpose of the research itself,” said Jon Doan, president of CAFA.
In 2021, Alberta ordered universities to halt their pursuit of partnerships with entities with links to China, citing national security considerations and concern over the use of research to facilitate human-rights abuses. The ban affects the University of Alberta, the University of Calgary, the University of Lethbridge, and Athabasca University.
The institutions are also banned from forming new partnerships involving visiting researchers or post-doctoral fellows, as well as engaging in initiatives that involve technology transfers, intellectual property, and research commercialization.
According to CAFA, the Government of Alberta’s decision to limit research exclusively based on nationality is racist.
“The Government of Alberta has created this academic ban on research with China as a way to play to the anti-Chinese sentiments of their right-wing base, and we do not in any way support that,” said Brendan Bruce, executive director of CAFA.
A statement from Alberta’s Education Minister noted that Alberta would welcome the federal government developing a comprehensive national framework on national security concerns for research partnerships.
In the spring of 2021, prior to the Alberta government order, the federal government issued a research security policy statement warning that “Canada’s world-class research, and its open and collaborative research environment, are increasingly targeted by espionage and foreign interference activities.”
The federal government encouraged researchers — including those in academia — “to take extra precautions to protect the security of their research, intellectual property, and knowledge development.”
By summer of the same year, amid rising concerns about China, the federal government released new National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships.
The guidelines require researchers to complete a security risk assessment questionnaire as an integral part of applications for federal funding through the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council of Canada.
CAUT is monitoring the implementation of the guidelines, with a focus on academic freedom, intellectual property rights, the potential for increased targeting of Chinese academics and students, and the additional administrative burdens imposed on researchers.
In its 2022 budget, the federal government committed $159.6 million, over five years, and $33.4 million ongoing to identify, assess, and mitigate potential risks to research security at Canadian post-secondary institutions.
According to the latest UNESCO Science Report, China is Canada’s leading partner for scientific co-authorship after the United States, and more than half of Canada’s scientific publications have foreign co-authors compared to a quarter on average for G20 countries.