Australia should better protect its most strategically sensitive university research by adapting principles from its Security of Critical Infrastructure (SOCI) framework, its arrangement for defending vital facilities, supply chains, information technology and communications.
Universities increasingly hold technologies, data and intellectual property whose compromise could affect national security, economic resilience and sovereign capability. This doesn’t mean treating all university research as subject to the full suite of obligations under the SOCI framework but rather applying its risk-governance approach more systematically to strategically significant research.
Australia isn’t starting from scratch. The University Foreign Interference Taskforce already gives universities guidance on governance, due diligence, cybersecurity and foreign-interference risks. Defence trade controls already regulate some transfers of military and dual-use technology, and universities also operate their own cybersecurity, research-integrity and risk-management systems. The next step should be to sharpen this combined approach by borrowing from the SOCI approach.
by The Strategist – Australian research needs to be protected like critical infrastructure
