Giuseppe Gagliano’s Post

"In 2020, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said the agency was investigating ‘hundreds’ of cases of foreign interference in Australia’s research sector. He warned that foreign governments were targeting universities to steal sensitive research, influence academic discourse and recruit agents. The AUKUS partnership, while offering immense opportunities for collaboration and technological advancement, also amplifies the risks we face. As Australia engages in joint research and development projects with allies, we must be vigilant in safeguarding our intellectual property and ensuring that our collaborative efforts do not inadvertently benefit our adversaries. To safeguard its research crown jewels, Australia must adopt a multi-pronged approach that includes: Robust vetting: implementing a rigorous vetting process for researchers in sensitive fields, scrutinising their backgrounds, affiliations and funding sources." #UFIT = #CleardLife https://lnkd.in/d3_-nXKP

"In 2020, ASIO Director-General Mike Burgess said the agency was investigating ‘hundreds’ of cases of foreign interference in Australia’s research sector. He warned that foreign governments were targeting universities to steal sensitive research, influence academic discourse and recruit agents. The AUKUS partnership, while offering immense opportunities for collaboration and technological advancement, also amplifies the risks we face. As Australia engages in joint research and development projects with allies, we must be vigilant in safeguarding our intellectual property and ensuring that our collaborative efforts do not inadvertently benefit our adversaries. To safeguard its research crown jewels, Australia must adopt a multi-pronged approach that includes: Robust vetting: implementing a rigorous vetting process for researchers in sensitive fields, scrutinising their backgrounds, affiliations and funding sources." #UFIT = #CleardLife https://lnkd.in/dq_utPW6

🤝 Amid international concerns over the China Scholarship Council, our latest blog's authors qianqian xie & Alfredo Yegros look at the data. They reveal trends, collaborations and broader implications, and ultimately argue for a "balanced, evidence-based approach". 👇 Read it now on Leiden Madtrics https://lnkd.in/ew534Jqk

I’m excited to share our latest blog “Balancing opportunity and risk: rethinking the China Scholarship Council Programmes (CSC) amid geopolitical tensions” 🥳 🥳 , co-written with Alfredo Yegros and building on our recent paper. In the post, we explore how CSC international mobility grant programmes both open doors and present challenges, especially in today’s climate of heightened geopolitical tensions. What we found: ✨ • CSC-funded researchers contribute to high-impact research and foster strong international collaborations ✨ • They often help fill funding gaps in under-resourced areas within host countries. ✨ • However, their engagement in security-sensitive research remains limited. Our analysis draws on analysis about what research is produced, how influential it is, who collaborates with whom, the funding environments involved, and whether research overlaps with sensitive areas. In the end, we propose policy recommendations calling for a balanced, evidence-based approach for host countries. One that safeguards security without closing the door to collaboration. Trust, transparency and open dialogue might be what keep global science moving forward. Read the full post on Leiden Madtrics https://lnkd.in/ew534Jqk #ResearchFunding #SciencePolicy #InternationalMobility #ChinaScholarshipCouncil

I visited a number of Chinese universities in June and this research strikes me as spot on. This research used the millions of scientific papers indexed on Web of Science to rank universities in 64 technologies and found Chinese universities dominate and take 9 of the top 10 spots in overall. Tsinghua University in Beijing is no 1 in artificial intelligence algorithms and hardware accelerators, adversarial A.I. and autonomous systems operations, and ranks in the global top 10 in 29 of the 64 domains. This mirrors my experience. Add to this the enormous investment and coordination. US companies are gathering investment but that is not the same thing as a basic, shared and published research from universities. "China is already surpassing the United States in science and technology research. Chinese students no longer need to go to America for world-class research experience in the fields that will shape our future. Barring China’s best minds from American campuses will only drive more of them into a Chinese academic research system increasingly integrated with the country’s defense sector and geared toward building national power." https://lnkd.in/gYfJ9DKH

China and the United States are drifting apart in global science In recent years the share of Chinese scientific papers written with U.S. coauthors has fallen steadily. The decline is strongest in Engineering and Technology, which includes fast growing areas such as computer hardware, software and artificial intelligence. At the same time collaboration with Europe, Japan and other partners has remained largely stable. This trend points to the emergence of two separate technology spheres, one centred on the U.S. and one on China. Political tensions may explain part of this development, yet the broader consequence is troubling. Open exchange and collaboration in science have long been among the strongest drivers of human progress. The key question now is whether global science can remain connected in an increasingly divided world. If it cannot, the world as a whole may become less innovative and less prosperous.

This is striking but not unexpected given the ongoing situation... Sadly, in the domain of "Engineering & Technology", the trend is also showing a soft decline for collaboration with Europe...

Shutting out China’s best minds will only push them into a homegrown Chinese research ecosystem that is eclipsing American universities. By Bethany Allen and Jenny Wong Leung https://lnkd.in/gUcRnP-b

"This logic overlooks a startling new reality: China is already surpassing the United States in science and technology research. Chinese students no longer need to go to America for world-class research experience in the fields that will shape our future. Barring China’s best minds from American campuses will only drive more of them into a Chinese academic research system increasingly integrated with the country’s defense sector and geared toward building national power. Data compiled by our teams at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute suggests that U.S. universities trail their Chinese counterparts in cutting-edge research in dozens of emerging technologies. We have combed through millions of scientific papers indexed on Web of Science, one of the world’s most comprehensive databases of peer-reviewed studies, to identify the most influential and high-impact research. We’ve then used that data to rank universities around the world in 64 critical technologies. Our findings are striking. China takes the No. 1 spot globally in 57 of those fields. In most of them, Chinese schools don’t just take the top slot; they dominate the top 10. By these metrics, the world’s best school for research based on aggregate performance across all technologies is Tsinghua University in Beijing, which ranks in the global top 10 in 29 of the 64 domains. In three of them — artificial intelligence algorithms and hardware accelerators, adversarial A.I. and autonomous systems operations — Tsinghua is No. 1 in the world. America’s best performer, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, makes the top 10 in just 10 areas of research and ranks first in two of them. We found that nine out of the 10 best overall performers are Chinese universities. That’s not even factoring in nonuniversity institutions like the state-run Chinese Academy of Sciences, which, if included, would be the world’s top performer, placing first in 28 of the 64 disciplines. Data based on published scientific papers can’t tell the whole story, of course. Chinese universities still don’t provide the sort of well-rounded education across a diverse range of disciplines that keeps U.S. universities like Harvard and Yale high on most global rankings. But high-tech research performance often leads to industrial dominance. Chinese institutions hold the highest spots in our rankings in technologies that underpin industries either already dominated by China — including drones, solar panels and electric vehicles — or where the country is making rapid progress, including nuclear energy technology and robotics." https://lnkd.in/gW7xAzyB

Research Professional News has spotlighted BFPG’s new report on Science and Soft Power, highlighting its calls for the restoration of long-term international funding, stronger coordination and better narratives to harness scientific expertise for global influence. https://lnkd.in/dn9ju5NU