The National Science Foundation's JASON advisory group's "Fundamental Research Security" report, linked at the end of FAQ #1 on this page, provides several example questions that researchers should ask before they embark on an international research collaboration. They are:
- Describe the engagement succinctly and without jargon. Is it fundamental research? If not, what are the institution’s policies around creating the engagement?
- Are the terms of the engagement made clear in writing? Have all the participants been identified? Are all participants known to the PI and the PI’s institution?
- Are all the participants' conflicts of interest and commitment documented?
- Are there any aspects of the engagement that are not to be disclosed to any of the participants? If so, what is the reason?
- Is there any aspect of the engagement that seems unusual, unnecessary, or poorly specified?
- Where does the funding and other resources needed for the activity come from? Is it clear what each party is providing?
- Are all the tangible assets of the engagement, existing or to be generated (e.g., data, metadata, profits, equipment, etc.), known? How will they be shared? Who decides how they are allocated?
- How does a participant end their engagement?
- Are scholars expected to reside away from their home institutions as a part of the engagement? If so, how are they chosen for participation in the engagement?
- What are the reporting requirements back to home institutions or organizations?
- Who will control the dissemination of the resulting fundamental research?
PIs are not currently required to address these questions. However, given the U.S. government's focus on stopping IP theft and other malign activities that the governments of China, Iran, North Korea, Russia, and others routinely engage in and which undermine widely-accepted academic principles of openness and reciprocity, we urge your center, institute, college, or department to adopt them as a best practice. Please contact ORC&S if you have any questions.
Additionally, you should research whether the individual or entity you wish to collaborate with is on a U.S. government Entity List. U.S. export control laws generally restrict the export of technologies on a country-by-country basis. The Entity List catalogs over 1,000 people and organizations throughout the world for which more stringent export control restrictions are imposed. This means that even if an item could be exported to a particular country, that same item may not be exported to a recipient in that country if on the Entity List. The MSU Export Control Officer (ECO) can screen your potential collaborators against the Entity List and other pertinent government watch lists in advance and advise you of the risks. The Department of Commerce also maintains a searchable interface that includes the same information on the Entity List.
A fundamental research collaboration with an entity or individual on the Entity List is legal; however, there are restrictions on interactions and such collaboration should be considered on a project-by-project basis through consultation with your department leadership and the ECO. Importantly, you must not ship or transfer any tangible physical items (this includes commercially-available goods as well as physical items that you create as part of your collaboration) to an Entity List institution. Also, except for publicly available information or the results of fundamental research, you generally may not furnish software, technical information, or research reports to an Entity List institution.
Finally, you cannot collaborate or otherwise engage with an individual or entity on the U.S. Treasury Department's Specially Designated Nationals (SDN) list unless you receive specific authorization from the export control team and a license from the U.S. government. The SDN list contains names of individuals and entities targeted for special sanctions by the U.S. government. These include terrorist, drug traffickers, and state-controlled entities of sanctioned governments, among others. A license from the U.S. government to engage with an SDN is difficult to obtain and often requires several months of governmental review. If you have engaged with, or seek to engage with, someone on the SDN list, of if you're just unsure whether a potential collaborator is a SDN, please contact the MSU ECO for further guidance.