Abstract

“Openness and international cooperation are at the core of great science and innovation, but they also make it particularly vulnerable to security threats.” said Iliana Ivanova, Commissioner for Innovation, Research, Culture, Education and Youth. Research security has become a topic of debate over the last few years, as geopolitical changes have taken place. In May 2024, EU Member States adopted recommendations to enhance security.

There have been several initiatives such as the creation of a European Centre of Expertise on Research Security and a concept of Trusted Research in the UK. In several countries ministries have set up national export control units and research institutes and universities have created their own teams. Research security is a matter of widespread concern – for both the big and the small RDI actors.

Research security is linked to researchers, research managers and administrators, security managers, property managers, funders and businesses, among others and therefore multi-professional expertise is required to avoid risks and to ensure that research is conducted in accordance with the requirements. To conduct research safely, development of procedures and processes, risk mitigation, communication activities, HR guidelines, one-pagers, training and much more, is needed.

Global challenges require global solutions and therefore it is important that universities across the world come together to find some common approaches on how to address or mitigate these challenges. In our presentation we describe the development of research security services at universities and the development of research security communities in UK, Denmark and Finland. We also shed some light on collaboration done with research security professionals from U.S. We give examples on shared challenges but also best practices such as training, resources, materials and risk management.