A National Issue with Transnational Reach: How Securing Research is Like Money Laundering

At first glance, the notion of protecting university research from misuse or abuse by foreign actors (“research security”) bears little resemblance to countering money laundering. Yet a deeper analysis of these disciplines yields some surprising similarities: they both involve protection of intangible objects that possess tangible financial benefit, they both seek to shield against a wide spectrum of transnational security threats, and they both involve the imposition of regulatory restrictions on institutions with cultural values that can run counter to those restrictions. For those reasons - and others which we will explore further below - this chapter examines the utility of the United Nations considering enacting a global research security policy (like the FATF’s 40 Recommendations) for the benefit of Member States. By drawing on the lessons from the establishment of international standards of anti-money laundering (AML) and counter-terrorism financing (CTF), this chapter suggests that there are some significant advantages to enacting an international policy instrument to protect higher education research institutions.