Berlin. In view of the growing threat to German research institutions, some federal states want to better protect their facilities from espionage and cyber attacks. Others leave it to the institutions themselves to protect knowledge. This is the result of a survey conducted by Handelsblatt among individual science ministries.
To this end, the country is in “continuous, intensive exchange” with universities and security authorities. Everyone involved is aware of the dangers and is therefore using all available instruments to counteract the possible outflow of knowledge.
The aim is to quickly close any gaps that arise and to enable tailor-made preventive measures, the minister continued. “It is also important to me that we train enough specialists at our universities so that we can better protect ourselves as a society as a whole against the loss of knowledge and cyber attacks.”
There have been a number of problematic cases in the past few months - at federal and state level. Last week, Federal Research Minister Dorothee Bär (CSU) presented a 400-page report on the dangerous proximity of the Helmholtz Center for Information Security (Cispa) to China. The Handelsblatt reported on this closeness in the summer, and a special auditor then investigated the case.
The auditors found that there were significant deficits in both the protection of business secrets and the selection of employees and cooperation partners. “The door and gate were wide open,” explained Bär in the Bundestag Research Committee. Since then, politicians have been calling for stricter security requirements.
The danger also exists at universities, which are the responsibility of the states. The professors there are responsible for who they hire and who they work with. They must independently assess whether this endangers national security or whether there is a risk of violations of export control and foreign trade law. The universities themselves usually only appeal to people to adhere to the rules. Experts complain that only a few have enough staff to provide researchers with sufficient support.
At the same time, universities themselves enter into critical collaborations. They insist on the freedom of science enshrined in the Basic Law. For example, the Technical University of Munich is researching drones together with a military-related university in Shanghai. The TU also has companies such as the Chinese company Huawei as partners of excellence. Huawei is excluded from research programs at the European level for security reasons.
In the Handelsblatt survey, some state ministers refer to the planned National Platform for Research Security. The federal-state committee will begin its work with its first meeting on October 16th. But it is still under construction, as they say. The platform is intended to provide advice and is a compromise between those who demand stricter rules for greater security and those who emphasize academic freedom. The intelligence services will be represented.
In view of the findings from the Cispa case, consideration is being given to upgrading the contact point in the Ministry of Research, government circles said. After all, the federal and state governments invest billions in research every year in order to use new knowledge to create innovations and products in the country. There is correspondingly great interest in protecting the acquired knowledge. Most recently, the Bavarian Ministry of Science sent out an extensive questionnaire for an “initial survey” to all research institutions in the country in order to inquire about the status of the protective measures on site.
In many places, the states say something similar, as the science minister of Rhineland-Palatinate, Clemens Hoch (SPD), puts it: “We are aware of the growing importance of research security in view of the changed global political situation.” At the same time, his ministry explained that the research institutions were “on their own responsibility” to take the protective measures necessary for them and tailored to their respective situation.
The ministry in North Rhine-Westphalia also stated that it would “support” institutions in “their own measures against the leakage of knowledge and espionage”. In addition, the State Office for the Protection of the Constitution is making universities aware of which research projects are particularly at risk of espionage. The office also advises universities to check collaborations more closely, for example when German researchers work with international partners or foreign guest scientists are recruited.
In fact, constitutional protection officers are active nationwide. However, it is said that attempts to raise awareness were often ineffective. So far, there is no set of rules requiring professors to take certain protective measures.
Hesse sees research security as a “joint task” for the state, university management and professors. Science Minister Timon Gremmels (SPD) relies on individual case reviews and rejects blanket controls on cooperation with critical states such as China, Iran or Russia, as well as on scientists of certain nationalities. “Academic freedom and security interests must be considered together and weighed up responsibly,” he said.
German universities have around 6,000 collaborations abroad - more than 1,000 of them in China, including with military universities. This applies to universities in Hamburg, for example. When asked, the Science Senate refers to university autonomy. It is the university's responsibility to examine safety-related aspects.
The authority ensures “that universities and research institutions can guarantee this security through appropriate structures and processes”. There is an “exchange” between the authorities, universities and research institutions, for example via working groups and networks, which result in reports and position papers. “The authority’s requirement to document every security-relevant project would be incompatible with the principle of academic freedom.”
