This report presents data from 22 internationally ranked research universities about their export control compliance practices including but not limited to faculty training, assessment and risk reports. Most participants are from the USA but the roster includes research institutions from Canada and Australia as well.
In addition to detailed data on export licenses, the study also furnishes data on the size of export controls staff, time spent on export controls issues, incidence of hiring outside attorneys and the precise hourly fees paid to such attorneys. In significant detail, survey respondents discuss their response to growing tension between the USA and China and its impact on their export controls regimen.
Survey respondents evaluate their faculty’s level of awareness of and degree of comprehension of export control strictures, and comment on their preparedness and training. Respondents also give their opinion of the validity of the current efforts by governments in the USA, Canada, the UK and elsewhere to more tightly control technology exports to China and, to a lesser extent, Russia. They discuss how much of their research does or does not fall under the “Fundamental Research exclusion definition in the USA or similar concepts in other countries.
Data in the report – the third since 2015 -- is broken out by world university ranking, annual research revenues, enrollment, General field of research focus, and separately for R1, and R2 and all other universities (or colleges).
Just a few of this comprehensive 89-page report’s major findings are that:
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4.55% of those surveyed have withdrawn a scholarship or expelled a foreign student over failure to disclose a relationship with a foreign military, university or government organization.
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50% of respondents from universities where research was biomedically-oriented felt that policies governing the employment and use of postdocs and visiting faculty from China and Russia were unclear.
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27.7% of participants are spending about the same amount of staff time on export controls as they had three years ago.
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60% of R2 universities in the sample participated in the Collaborative Institutional Training Initiative [CITI] export control compliance training.