Former CSIS director David Vigneault says Western universities must urgently rethink their approach to security. He argued that foreign intelligence services increasingly view academic campuses as rich hunting grounds for valuable research.
He highlighted a recent Chinese operation that attempted to extract emerging technologies from multiple Western institutions. Such attempts, he said, show how deeply foreign agencies have embedded themselves within research networks. The goal is to acquire strategic knowledge faster than their competitors.
Vigneault noted that hostile states often use a blend of cyberattacks and personal recruitment to gain access. These tactics exploit the trust-based structure of academic environments, where collaboration is often prioritised over caution.
China’s long-term military goals, he explained, are central to its espionage strategy. By absorbing foreign innovations, Beijing can integrate advanced capabilities into its defence systems without enduring lengthy development cycles.
He urged governments, universities and private researchers to work together to address the problem. At the same time, he cautioned against allowing legitimate security concerns to turn into profiling or unjust suspicion of individuals based on ethnicity.