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Accepted Contribution:
School's out: how universities are sending strategic technology abroad
Christopher Watterson
(University of Sydney)
Ross Peel
(King's College London)
Ana Sanchez-Cobaleda
(University of Barcelona)
This paper typologises the phenomenon of strategic technology transfers at universities, describing seven discrete mechanisms through which strategic technology developed by and/or held at universities can be transferred abroad in the course of regular university business.
Long abstract:
As the competition between East and West regains momentum, states are increasingly regulating the export of strategically relevant technologies, ranging from methods for producing high-performance alloys to experimental data on semiconductor design to AI processing platforms. Universities, struggling to reconcile their roles as hubs of both strategic R&D and global knowledge exchange, are failing to keep pace with this increasingly onerous regulatory regime, leading to high-profile cases of universities transferring, often unknowingly or illicitly, strategic technologies abroad. Drawing on recent case reporting from North America, Europe, and Australia, this paper typologises the phenomenon of strategic technology transfers at universities, describing seven discrete mechanisms through which strategic technology developed by and/or held at universities can be transferred abroad in the course of regular university business. We then discuss university-level barriers to observing national controls on transfers of strategic technologies, ranging from pressures to diversify funding streams to academic culture.