Parliamentary Committee Notes: Research Security in Canada
Issue:
The federal government is taking concrete measures to protect cutting-edge Canadian research, development, and technology that is being actively targeted by foreign state actors to advance their geopolitical, economic, and security interests.
Proposed Response:
- The Government of Canada takes the issue of safeguarding Canada’s research enterprise very seriously.
- There is no question that foreign state actors are actively targeting Canadian academic and research institutions, as well as public and private organizations, to collect sensitive personal data, scientific knowledge, and gain access to technology.
- To build a strong economy and improve the lives of all Canadians, we need a research environment that is as open and collaborative as possible, and as safeguarded as necessary.
- Budget 2022 announced the creation of the Research Security Centre at Public Safety. With advisors located across Canada, the Centre is the first point of contact for Canadian researchers and universities who need support safeguarding their research. We have also created the Safeguarding Your Research online portal to help assess and minimize risks, and protect Canada’s research enterprise.
- That is also why the Government implemented in 2021 the National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships.
- In January of this year, we also announced new eligibility criteria for grants from our federal granting agencies and the Canada Foundation for Innovation through the new Policy on Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern.
- These efforts by Government of Canada are fully in step with likeminded allies and equally provide a pathway for Canada’s academic and private sectors on ways to protect their important innovation and research.
If pressed on how does the Government protect science within federal departments:
- The Research Security Centre at Public Safety is an outward facing body and its’ primary mandate is to provide support to Universities across Canada.
- However, the Centre provides informal support when it can to government scientists in the form of workshops or interdepartmental engagements.
- The Centre aims, where possible, to help provide advice to science based departments and agencies, to compliment Deputy Minister’s own efforts to safeguard their research.
Background:
Canadian research, innovation, and development is fueled by an open and collaborative environment that encourages international partnerships and is supported by the Government of Canada’s principles of open science. Open science is a key component for Canada to remain an attractive destination for conducting cutting-edge research. However, this environment, coupled with the advanced nature of Canadian-led research, makes the Canadian research community—public, private and academic sectors—vulnerable to threat actors who want to exploit these conditions to gain access to our world-class knowledge, data, and expertise.
Foreign threat actors have a number of means to acquire advanced Canadian research and intellectual property: academic collaborations, partnerships, cyber-attacks, purchases of Canadian companies or majority/minority shareholdings, as well as the exploitation or coercion of vulnerable individuals.
While fields with applications in weapons of mass destruction programs have traditionally been the most sought-after target of foreign threat actors, this has broadened in recent years to include research relating to dual-use technologies (i.e. technologies with both civilian and military applications). This includes, but is not limited to artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and bio- and nanotechnology.
It is important to note that the threat also includes research conducted in humanities and social sciences. For example, research in social sciences often gathers personal data (including medical history), lifestyle information, socioeconomic, demographic, as well as other personal/confidential parameters. This type of information could be used for a number of nefarious purposes, such as potentially feeding into artificial intelligence algorithms to populate data sets associated with certain individuals, groups, nationalities or ethnicities and support the suppression of human rights.
Research Security Centre
Budget 2022 announced the creation of the Research Security Centre, housed at Public Safety. The Centre has three primary responsibilities: (1) implementing and managing the National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships; (2) Creating and distributing tools and resources on research security to Canada’s academic community, and; (3) providing specific advice to researchers and universities about their research and how to secure it.
The Centre also includes a team of regional advisors, located across Canada who provide the advice and guidance directly to universities and researchers. This year the regional advisors have had over 300 engagements with academics and universities across
National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships
The Government released the National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships on July 12, 2021. The Guidelines were developed in consultation with the Government of Canada-Universities Working Group.
All researchers are encouraged to use the National Security Guidelines for Research Partnerships to assess all research partnerships, with any partner or funder, to protect their work.
A phased, risk-based process is being used to implement the guidelines, starting with the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council’s (NSERC) Alliance Grants for applications involving a private sector partner. This fall, the program was expanded to the Canadian Biomedical Research Fund/Biomedical Research Infrastructure Fund phase 2 call. Further expansion will continue in early 2024.
Sensitive Technology Research and Affiliations of Concern Policy
On January 16, 2024, the Ministers of PS, ISI and Health announced the details of new eligibility criteria for federal research grant funding from Canada’s granting councils and the Canada Foundation for Innovation. These new rules prohibit research funding be awarded to a proposal where any of the researchers are affiliated with – or in receipt of funding or in-kind contributions – from a university, research institute or laboratory on the list of Named Research Organizations.
Safeguarding Science
Since 2016, Public Safety Canada has led the Safeguarding Science initiative in partnership with 10 other federal departments and agencies to raise awareness amongst stakeholders—including private companies, federal research labs, and universities—of the risks of proliferation, dual-use technology, research security, and cybersecurity. The initiative informs participants about tools to help recognize and mitigate the risks Canadian institutions are facing, including those posed to their research and development. The workshops have been delivered to more than half of the academic institutions across the country, and universities continue to ask for additional and frequent workshops. The regional advisors within the Research Security Centre will be starting to offer an updated version of these workshops in the new year.
The Safeguarding Your Research Online Portal
In September 2020, the Government of Canada, in collaboration with the university sector, launched the Safeguarding Your Research online portal. The portal serves as a public resource to raise awareness and provide guidance and best practices on identifying and mitigating potential security risks, with information on risk awareness and best practices, a research due diligence guide, links to relevant domestic and international content, and guidance on how to identify and mitigate research security risks. The portal is similar to recent public guidance issued by Canada’s allies, such as the United Kingdom via its Trusted Research portal, Australia via the Guidelines to Counter Foreign Interference in the University, and the United States via various legislative and policy statements.
CSIS Academic Outreach
In keeping with its longstanding engagement with the academic sector, over the past few years, CSIS has provided a number of virtual briefings on the topic of research security to academia, research institutions and private sector companies in the biopharmaceutical, life sciences, and data science sectors. This initiative was developed in cooperation with government and academic partners including Universities Canada, U15 and Tech-Access Canada. In addition to presentations to universities and academic associations, CSIS also presented on this topic to the Canadian Chamber of Commerce and at the Canadian Science Policy Conference, the University of Saskatchewan’s Global Café, the CASIS West Coast Conference and the GovTech Summit. In total, CSIS contacted more than 225 entities across Canada and briefed at least 2000 Canadian stakeholders during the COVID-19 pandemic in 2020.
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