Sino-EU Academic Collaborations: Identifying Risks & Challenges
Concerns about the security risks of Sino-European academic collaborations have intensified during the Xi Jinping era as China has raised the level and volume of its research output and emerged as a geopolitical competitor. This report introduces a toolbox for addressing risks associated with academic collaborations, cross-referencing a specially compiled OSINT dataset of institutional partnerships with the Datenna platform to identify connections to government and military entities, dual-use technology development, and inadvertent pathways for knowledge transfer.
What's inside
379 institutional collaborations mapped across 20 leading Chinese universities — comprising the top 13 academic institutions and the Seven Sons of National Defence (7S), all of which were flagged as defense-related by Datenna's platform algorithm
84 collaborations involve a 7S university as the Chinese partner — over one fifth of the total dataset — including Northwestern Polytechnical University (30 collaborations) and Beihang University (12), both subject to US and Japanese sanctions
81 of 379 collaborations fall within EU-designated strategic technology areas: Advanced Materials (28), Biotechnologies (19), and Energy Technologies (13) account for two-thirds of these
Case study — Beihang University: holds hundreds of defense-labeled patents in missile, aerospace and launcher technologies; participated in ~200 procurement calls for the PLA, CMC, and China Aerospace Science and Technology Corporation; listed on the US Entity List since 2005
Active joint PhD program between Leiden University (NL) and Xi'an Jiaotong University on AI & Bioscience — 30 students recruited since 2020, jointly funded with the Chinese Scholarship Council; Xi'an Jiaotong won 82 of 114 PLA AI procurement bids
Full ownership mapping, procurement connections, patent analysis, and geolocation data in the complete report.
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