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Collaboration and partnerships are fundamental to research. However, in an ever-changing geopolitical landscape, research activities can be vulnerable to tensions on the international stage between Canada and some other countries. Governments globally have been reviewing the best way to address research security concerns while also protecting the ability to establish international research partnerships.

Canada first released the in 2021, with the goal of making the research ecosystem “as open as possible and as secure as necessary.” Around the same time, discussions at the provincial level led to the launch of Ontario’s own guidelines.

Both the federal and provincial guidelines, although separately released, address similar considerations that directly impact research funding decisions, particularly regarding projects that advance sensitive technology research areas and/or partner with private institutions connected to foreign military, defence, or state security organizations.

In 2022, Queen’s, as well as other Canadian universities, received federal funding to establish support for researchers in safeguarding their programs and the Research Security team was created in the Vice-Principal Research portfolio. The Gazette spoke to Ricardo Smalling, Legal Counsel & Director - Research Security, Data & Privacy to learn more about these guidelines, their impact, and the supports available for researchers at Queen’s.

Why did Canada and Ontario need to establish research security guidelines at this moment in time?

Both the federal and provincial governments have been expressing concerns about research security for a few years now. Federally, there was a concern about the dual use of technologies (those developed for civilian use that may have military and defence applications) and keeping those out of the hands of foreign state actors that pose a threat to Canadian national security. On the other hand, the province of Ontario had a stronger focus on intellectual property, that is, in protecting IP developed in Ontario institutions using ostensibly public support to do it and making sure that the benefits of those efforts came back to Ontario and were not used against Ontario and Canada. Since 2021, federal and provincial guidelines have evolved in separate but parallel tracks.

What does the federal process currently look like?

In February 2023, the Federal Government stated that it would no longer fund projects where any of the researchers are affiliated with entities that pose a threat to Canada's national security. In January 2024, two supporting documents for this policy (the Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern or STRAC Policy) were released: a list of sensitive technology research areas and a list of over 100 named research organizations (NROs), mainly from Russia, China, and Iran, that, according to the federal government’s assessment at this moment, pose a threat to Canada's national security.

Researchers need to attest that they have no active affiliations with any of the listed organizations when applying for funding from the Tri-Agency councils and the Canadian Foundation for Innovation (CFI) for projects in sensitive technology research areas.

More recently, the National Research Council Canada (NRC) announced its own research security policy that aligns with the STRAC Policy. However, NRC has made the prohibition on supporting projects where researchers have affiliations with NROs applicable to all NRC supported projects, not just those in a sensitive technology research area.

How did Ontario replicate and expand this process in the provincial guidelines?

The province is looking more broadly at who Ontario researchers are partnering with – that is, assessing if researchers work with people who have affiliations or collaborations with certain foreign organizations, including but not restricted to the Federal Government’s NRO list. But, unlike the Federal Government, the province has not provided a list of those other organizations of concern.

The provincial process continues to evolve, most recently with a pre-application attestation form, similar to the federal government’s attestation, as well as a requirement for researchers named in the application to disclose their active foreign research supports and positions and appointments.

What impact will these guidelines have on the research ecosystem as a whole? Are they going to limit the type of research Canadians can do?

The research security guidelines aren’t meant to limit research or research collaborations; the goal is to identify risks and come up with mitigation strategies to ensure research can still happen, while protecting national and provincial interests. Admittedly, at both levels of government, there are some research collaborations where the risks have been deemed unmitigable and therefore must be limited.

Federally (specifically Tri-Agency and CFI funded projects), your research is affected if you are advancing a sensitive technology research area, such as critical infrastructure research, or research involving large data sets of sensitive personal information about Canadians, and if you are working with private sector partners.

Provincially, researchers will also need to disclose collaborations with anybody who has affiliations with certain foreign organizations aligned to military or security interests in the home countries of those organizations, including NROs.

In both cases (federal and provincial) these prohibitions on certain affiliations and collaborations will continue for the life of the grant.

What support is available for researchers at Queen’s?

Research security teams have been stood up at universities across Canada, including here at Queen’s. These teams have been working collaboratively to keep track of current policies and guidelines, and to identify tools that help guide risk assessment. By acquiring tools and training personnel to assess risks, the Research Security team at VPR takes the bulk of the due diligence and risk assessment work off the hands of researchers. In case a potential risk is identified, we work with faculty on how to mitigate these risks.

That means our researchers can still go out there and talk to partners while we work in the background to make sure those partnerships do not lead to them being in a situation that will jeopardize their ability to receive research funding in the future.

When should researchers reach out to the research security team?

Reach out as early as possible when in conversations with a new partner, and especially if it is an institution or organization that is, to some extent, unknown or located outside Canada. This will put them on our radar, and we will flag any potential concerns, if we uncover any.

Additionally, we know that the Ontario process focuses not just on the people our researchers are working with, but also who those collaborators are working with. So, when building a research team for a project, it might be useful to let your research project advisor know about your potential collaborators. We will look at their publication and patenting records and flag anything that, from our experience, the Ontario government might be concerned about. This doesn't mean you can't work with these people: it means that we need to provide an explanation to clear up any potential misconceptions that the province may have, based on looking at a publication or patent filing.

To learn more about Safeguarding your research, access the webpage.