Institutional resilience
Institutional resilience against illegitimate influence focuses on protecting the academic environment from undesirable influences that could threaten academic freedom, independence, and the integrity of the university. The aim is to strengthen resilience against attempts at covert, manipulative, or coercive influence, especially from foreign entities or other actors seeking to disrupt decision-making processes, research, and teaching.
The internationalization of European research is influenced and abused in ways that not only violate our ethical principles and laws, but also threaten our security.
Possible forms of illegitimate influence in the higher education and research environment are mainly associated with:
- the undesirable transfer of critical knowledge, know-how and technologies that could affect the security of the EU and its member states, for example if they were used by third countries for military or intelligence purposes;
- illegitimate influence on research, which may lead to its misuse by or from third countries to spread certain narratives, encourage self-censorship among students and academics, thereby undermining academic freedom and the integrity of research in the EU;
- breaches of ethics or integrity, where knowledge and technology are used to suppress or undermine fundamental human rights and freedoms, whether in the EU or elsewhere.
Research security
Research security refers to a set of preventive measures of a systemic nature that reduce the risks associated with the above-mentioned forms of illegitimate influence. In the international environment, this initiative is mainly associated with the terms "research security," "knowledge security," and "trusted research." The primary objective is to comprehensively protect the research ecosystem and, with it, the protection of national and EU interests.
Manuals and methodologies
Below you will find manuals and methodologies that detail the individual steps contributing to institutional resilience.