Right-sizing research security in practice: Interviews with Chinese-background scientists in Australian universities

Executive Summary

This report examines how Australia’s research security settings are experienced by 12 senior Chinese-Australian scientists working across engineering, materials science, energy, computer science, artificial intelligence, photonics and related STEM fields. All have spent substantial parts of their careers in Australian universities and have extensive experience in competitive research funding, research leadership, industry engagement and international collaboration.

The report is the qualitative companion to Right-Sizing Research Security: A Survey of Chinese-Background Scientists in Australian Universities (October 2026) by Elena Collinson, Wanning Sun, Marina Yue Zhang, James Laurenceson and Xunpeng Shi, based on responses from 109 Chinese-background researchers. While the survey, published by the Australia-China Relations Institute at the University of Technology Sydney (UTS:ACRI), shows how widely particular views and experiences are shared, the interviews examine how research security settings are interpreted and navigated in practice, and how they affect decisions about collaborators, students, funding, travel, research direction and careers.

The interviews do not point to opposition to research security itself. All 12 participants accepted that international research could present serious national security risks and that governments and universities need safeguards. As one participant put it:

[D]efinitely necessary. From what I can see, no country today can afford not to have a policy like this.

The disagreement was primarily about where the boundaries are drawn, how consistently they are applied and what happens when researchers cannot easily determine which activities will attract additional scrutiny.

Key findings

• Participants supported research security but wanted clearer differentiation between different levels of risk. Interviewees generally accepted tighter controls around classified information, sensitive technology, defencerelated research and other identifiable security risks. Their concern was that the boundary between these activities and lower-risk, open research could be difficult to identify. One participant said:
  
  I don’t think I’ve seen a clearly written document telling me precisely what I can do or cannot do. It feels more like a policy direction that’s communicated to us by universities using very opaque language.
  
  The companion survey reflects the same concern. While 62% agreed that Australia needs policies to manage national security risks in international research and 73% favoured case-by-case assessment, 70% disagreed that current policies adequately distinguish lower-risk from higher-risk collaboration.
  
  
• Research security settings often influenced behaviour before any formal decision was made. Participants described leaving China-based collaborators off grant applications, discouraging prospective students, limiting travel and conference activity, documenting interactions more extensively and deciding not to pursue some opportunities. In several cases, the issue was not that an activity had been formally prohibited, but that the expected administrative burden, delay or scrutiny changed the researcher’s calculation. After completing extensive university due diligence for a prospective doctoral student whose visa was then delayed for more than a year, one participant said:
  
  So, I asked myself: why bother?
  
  Another described no longer pursuing grant applications involving Chinabased collaborators:
  
  I have stopped trying, as I know that if I involve China-based researchers and Chinese universities, I won’t even jump through the hoop of my university’s gatekeepers.
  
  
• Universities were a key point at which broad security settings were translated into practical decisions. Participants described considerable variation between universities, faculties and research offices. Several believed that institutional incentives encouraged caution: the consequences of approving a collaboration that later attracts regulatory or public criticism are visible, while the scientific opportunity lost by delaying or declining it is harder to see. One participant characterised university behaviour in these terms:
  
  From their perspective, it’s about managing risk, so they are unlikely to want to confront the policy head-on or resist it.
  
  Another described the perceived incentives more sharply through the Chinese metaphor of the ‘black gauze hat’, making the case that some administrators were primarily concerned with avoiding decisions that might expose them to criticism.
  
  
• Participants believed Australia-China scientific exchange is increasingly reciprocal, rather than principally a oneway transfer of knowledge. Several said that policy debate still reflects an earlier period in which China was primarily acquiring scientific and technological capability from more advanced research systems. In their own fields, they described Australian researchers now seeking access to Chinese expertise, research infrastructure, equipment, large research teams and industrial capability. One participant reflected on changes in the steel sector:
  
  Fifteen years ago, Chinese steel mills were still learning from overseas. Today, there is probably very little they still need to learn from abroad; instead, others are coming to learn from them.
  
  Another put the issue in terms of research speed:
  
  In science, time is everything. Everyone wants to be the first. Australia may not aspire to be the first, but why should we deliberately slow ourselves down?
  
  Participants did not argue that China’s growing scientific capability removed legitimate security concerns. Rather, they argued that the opportunity cost of limiting collaboration has also increased.
  
  
• Participants linked international collaboration to research capability and research translation, not only to publications. They described access to researchers, infrastructure, follow-on funding, industrial partners and markets as important in moving research from proof of concept towards application. One participant described the constraint in practical terms:
  
  If there is no more funding to follow up, and if we cannot collaborate with China, then even if you have the research capability, you still need money and students to continue the work.
  
  Another connected collaboration more directly to Australia’s innovation capacity:
  
  At the end of the day, it’s people who do it.
  
  The interviews cannot establish the aggregate effect of reduced collaboration on Australian innovation or productivity, but they show why participants regarded international networks as part of the process through which scientific ideas are developed, tested and translated.
  
  
• Some participants believed their Chinese background affected how their research relationships were perceived. Concerns about procedural fairness and differential treatment were expressed particularly strongly by several interviewees. One participant said:
  
  Too often, I get this feeling that university research bureaucrats are not respectful of scientists with Chinese heritage like myself.
  
  The companion survey provides a broader indication of this concern. Fifty-five percent of respondents were not confident that ethnicity, birthplace, language background or personal networks did not inappropriately influence perceptions of their China-related collaborations.
  
  
• Dissatisfaction with research security settings often coexisted with strong commitment to Australia.Several participants had spent decades in Australia, raised families here and described their professional identity in explicitly Australian terms. One participant reflected:
  
  I’ve always believed this is a really, really good country... So I’ve always wanted to give something back and make a genuine contribution to this country.
  
  Another said:
  
  My home is here. My children are Australians. I see myself as an Australian.
  
  These accounts complicate any interpretation of criticism as simple disengagement. For several participants, frustration arose precisely because they believed that restrictions or uncertainty were making it harder to undertake research that they regarded as contributing to Australia.
  
  
• Participants also linked the research environment to decisions about where scientists build their careers. They described colleagues moving to China, Singapore, Hong Kong, Europe and the Middle East in response to a combination of constraints in Australia and attractive research opportunities elsewhere. One participant described scientific research as a vocation:
  
  Scientists consider the pursuit of scientific research to be their calling. If you don’t allow them to do research, that’s a very painful thing to endure. So, they go to places where they can.
  
  The companion survey found that 23% of respondents were either uncertain about remaining in Australian academia or had left an Australian institution where research security concerns were at least one factor.
  
  

For the participants in this study, right-sizing research security means making distinctions clearer – identifying genuinely sensitive activity, applying scrutiny in proportion to the risks involved and giving researchers enough certainty to continue pursuing international collaboration where those risks are lower.