Like the Fox in the Henhouse report issued by the U.S. House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party, and covered in the September 2025 COGR Update, this report relies heavily on bibliometric analysis of co-authored publications involving U.S. federally funded researchers and individuals affiliated with institutions linked to Chinese defense laboratories. Concerns have been raised that (i) co-authored publications alone do not accurately reflect the depth, nature, or even existence of meaningful collaborations, and (ii) due to publication timelines and lag effects, listed institutional affiliations do not necessarily reflect an author’s position at the time the underlying research was conducted, potentially overstating or mischaracterizing connections to entities of concern.
Another important contextual factor is the timeframe of the report’s bibliometric dataset. The study analyzes publications from January 2019 - June 2025, including approximately two years of papers published before the issuance of NSPM-33 in January 2021. Given the typical publication lag, many articles in the dataset likely reflect research conducted prior to the development and implementation of NSPM-33-related policies. As a result, the analysis may not fully capture the impact of federal research security measures that universities and federal agencies have only begun implementing in recent years.
Despite concerns raised about using bibliometric data in this manner, the authors conclude—based on their questionable analysis—that collaborations between U.S. researchers and certain PRC defense-affiliated institutions have continued across several scientific and engineering fields despite the increased focus on research security policies in the United States in recent years.
The authors suggest that existing U.S. policy responses, which largely emphasize disclosure and compliance requirements for researchers and institutions, have been ineffective. The report argues that the research community often lacks sufficient information to assess whether foreign collaborators may have connections to foreign military or defense research systems, complicating institutional efforts to manage potential research security risks.
While the report also emphasizes the need for expanded analytic capabilities to assess international research partnerships, it does not reference the Argus Platform currently being developed by NSF SECURE Analytics to support research security analysis for the federal research enterprise.
The report proposes three recommendations that focus on severely restricting research involving collaborations with entities linked to foreign adversaries and centralizing federal oversight:
> Enactment of the SAFE Research Act. The authors call on Congress to pass the Securing American Funding and Expertise from Adversarial Research Exploitation Act of 2025 (SAFE Research Act), which would prohibit any U.S. scientist from receiving federal funding who has collaborated with anyone “affiliated with a hostile foreign entity” during the previous 5 years. If passed, prohibited activities under the Act would include joint research, co-authorship, and advising graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.
> The Creation of a New Federal Center. The report recommends establishing a government entity to serve as a clearinghouse for government-wide research security and integrity regulations, as well as for compliance monitoring and enforcement.
> U.S. and Allied Nations Coordination. The authors encourage the U.S. and allied nations to support collaborative “research on research security” initiatives and multi-sector consortia to address persistent knowledge gaps.
The report contains conflict-of-interest disclosures for two of the authors. One author previously worked on a subcontract related to the development of the Argus platform, although that subcontract is no longer in place. Another author is also a Lead Investigator for the House Select Committee on the Strategic Competition Between the United States and the Chinese Communist Party.
