Question to the Department for Education:

To ask the Secretary of State for Education, whether her Department issues guidance on (a) identifying and (b) tackling political interference from international actors to academic institutions.

Education is a devolved matter, and the response outlines the information for England only.

The government works in partnership with the sector to support institutions to make informed decisions on international collaborations and manage national security risks. Universities UK, with government support, continues to deliver a programme of work to increase the understanding and awareness of the threat from interference within the higher education sector. A key output of this work is the publication of two sets of guidelines: ‘Managing risks in Internationalisation: Security related issues’ and ‘Managing risks in international research and innovation’.

These guidelines are available here:

https://www.universitiesuk.ac.uk/what-we-do/policy-and-research/publications/managing-risks-internationalisation;

https://www.ukri.org/publications/managing-risks-in-international-research-and-innovation/.

The guidance has specific sections on mitigating against foreign interference. In addition, the Research Collaboration Advice Team and National Protective Security Authority continue to provide tailored advice to researchers and institutions on how to manage national security risks in international research collaborations.

The National Security Act 2023 further strengthened the government’s legal powers to counter foreign interference, including those actions which amount to transnational repression, and provides the security services and law enforcement agencies with additional tools to deter, detect and disrupt modern-day state threats.