Australia’s research governance policies risk stifling innovation — and amount to national self-harm

share_windows This article is an English translation of an opinion piece published in FT Chinese on 13 July 2026.

Australian universities are being warned by national security agencies and newspaper editorial writers that research in “sensitive” Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (STEM) fields such as artificial intelligence is at risk of being stolen. And China is frequently presented as the principal threat.

But these warnings almost always miss two essential points of context.

The first is that the bread and butter of STEM research at universities is what is known as “fundamental research”. This is work intended to be published, shared and scrutinised. An intelligence officer sitting in Shanghai, Sydney or Seattle doesn’t need to plot how to acquire it covertly.

When the Australian government amended its export control regime in 2024 to align it more closely with AUKUS partners, the intention was never to restrict collaboration on fundamental research with China or anyone else.

We know this because scientists were told so by Emily Hall, Assistant Secretary of Defence Export Controls at the Australian government’s Department of Defence. Briefing them ahead of the changes, she said that the exemption for “fundamental research” broadened an existing carve-out for “basic research”. This meant “a greater range of research activities will qualify [for an exemption], and thereby not require a permit”.

To be sure, a narrow set of technologies can raise legitimate Australian security concerns. The Australian Security Intelligence Agency has rightly warned about espionage risks surrounding involvement in initiatives such as AUKUS. Protecting genuine secrets like nuclear-powered submarine technologies is precisely what intelligence agencies are supposed to do.

But classified research accounts for only a tiny fraction of activity at Australian universities. The latest figures show that just 1.8 per cent of university R&D expenditure is directed towards defence-related objectives.

And when classified research is undertaken, it is subject to an entirely different and far more stringent set of safeguards. These encompass security governance, personnel vetting, security clearances, physical access controls and dedicated cyber protections.

The second missing point of context is that if concerns about losing scientific advantage are what principally drive research security policy, China arguably has more reason for concern than countries such as Australia when it comes to collaboration.

As the Financial Times reported last week, now that China is no longer in “catch up” mode but “super power” mode, fears that other countries might acquire its latest discoveries are precisely what policymakers in Beijing are beginning to grapple with.

According to the Clarivate InCites database, scientists affiliated with Chinese institutions have appeared on 55 per cent of the world’s top 10 per cent most-cited STEM papers since 2020. This is more than triple the US share (17 per cent) and 11 times Australia's share (5 per cent).

Of Australia’s top-tier STEM publications, more than half (52 per cent) involve collaboration with scientists affiliated with Chinese institutions – three times more frequently than collaboration with US-based researchers.

Asked to comment on the cost-and-benefit of Australia-China science collaboration, one of the Chinese-Australian scientists we interviewed, a senior professor and a leading research in metallic material engineering in NSW offered this blunt assessment:

“Let me put it this way. If China and Australia were to decouple in areas like energy, batteries, materials, and automation, the impact on China would actually be almost negligible. But for Australia, the impact would be huge.”

When an over-securitised government policy bent is translated into research governance practices within universities, the result is that collaboration has practically stopped in some areas like quantum computing and AI.

The Chinese-Australian scientists we spoke to, who have until recent years been at the forefront of scientific collaboration between the two countries, contended that the outcome was an act of self-harm. Australia was cutting itself off from specialised expertise, state-of-the-art facilities, unique datasets, and large-scale research networks.

Another consequence, in the opinion of the scientists who talked to us, is the potential weakening of Australia's capacity to transition from a resource-rich nation to an “innovation nation”. This narrowing of Australia’s innovation pathway beyond the stage of fundamental research to achieve its Future Made in Australia agenda.

A leading biochemical engineer based in South Australia believes that the problem facing Australia is a growing disconnect between innovation and productivity growth.

“We are really looking at two things here: growth rate and share of global output. In terms of global share, if Australia cannot connect its universities and research system with a strong market force and strong industrial driving force outside the country, then most of its innovation potential will remain unrealised.”

Most Australians know the HPV vaccine is an Australian invention and are proud of it. And since the adoption of this vaccine, rates of cervical cancer have fallen dramatically, placing Australia on track to become one of the first in the world to effectively eliminate cervical cancer as a public health problem. In 2021, zero cases of cervical cancer were diagnosed in Australian women under 25. That compares with nearly 1000 Australian women diagnosed with the life-threatening condition two decades earlier.

What is less known to the public is the fact the vaccine was the result of collaboration between Scottish-born Australian immunologist Ian Frazer, Chinese virologist Jian Zhou, and Zhou’s wife, Xiaoyi Sun, who assisted him in the laboratory. Yet, in today’s policy environment, such visionary leadership is in short supply, and many bright young Chinese students and scholars struggle to get a visa to come to Australia.

As a middle power with a limited scale in industry and market, if Australia closes itself off from the world’s leading scientific ecosystems, it risks not becoming safer, but poorer in knowledge and capability. And an already tepid rate of productivity growth will only slow further.