Report highlights gaps in US research security policies
A report from Digital Science has raised questions about the effectiveness of US federal research security policies, finding that nearly half of researchers affiliated with both a restricted entity and a US research institution held their US affiliation for two years or less.
The study found that 14,549 researchers held such short-term affiliations over a 10-year period, accounting for 48.2% of researchers identified as having affiliations with both restricted entities and US institutions.
The findings are published in Research Security in U.S. Federally Funded Science: Evidence, Exposure, and a Risk-Calibrated Path Forward, described as the first ecosystem-wide assessment of research security exposure across US federally funded research.
Authored by Dr Xueying (Shirley) Han, Head of Research Analytics at Digital Science, the report examines research published between 2016 and 2025, drawing on publication, funding and researcher affiliation data from the company’s Dimensions database.
The analysis covers more than three million publications acknowledging US federal funding and approximately 1.9 million researchers with US affiliations. Researcher affiliations were cross-referenced against restricted-entity lists maintained by US and allied government agencies.
The report comes as US federal research security requirements continue to tighten, with new funding prohibitions and restrictions on collaboration with designated entities taking effect in 2026 and 2027.
One of its central findings concerns visiting scholars and other researchers holding short-term appointments. During such appointments, researchers typically list their host institution as their affiliation, potentially leaving previous institutional connections outside existing disclosure and screening processes.
Rather than recommending wider restrictions on international research collaboration, Han advocates a risk-calibrated approach, under which institutions would assess the sensitivity of research, establish acceptable levels of risk and apply consistent screening and ongoing monitoring of researchers. The report also recommends considering cooling-off periods where appropriate.
“There’s a tendency to treat openness and security as opposites, but our data suggest that isn’t quite right,” Dr Han explains. “Addressing this oversight issue doesn’t require restricting collaboration. It requires institutions and agencies to know where to look and to act appropriately.”
Despite identifying potential gaps in oversight, the study suggests that overall research security exposure remains relatively limited and is declining.
The proportion of federally supported publications involving a restricted-entity affiliation fell by 30% between 2018 and 2025, while only 2% of researchers held both US and restricted-entity affiliations in the same year.
The report also identifies wider challenges in the US research security framework, including the lack of a unified list of critical technology areas, inconsistent thresholds for assessing international collaborations and standardised compliance requirements that may fail to distinguish between different levels of risk.
Han argues that better use of research intelligence and affiliation data could help institutions direct resources towards collaborations and research areas where potential exposure is greatest, without unnecessarily restricting legitimate international partnerships.
“This assessment gives research security officers, university leaders, and federal program managers data they can use to better understand where risks are concentrated and focus attention where it is most warranted,” Dr Han says. “That can strengthen research security without treating every international collaboration as equally risky.”