Pentagon orders "research security audit" at University of Illinois, 29 other schools
The University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign confirmed on Tuesday that it recieved a letter from the Department of Defense, which has announced "research security audits" at 30 universities nationwide.
On Monday, the Department of Defense announced the audit, and said it is "designed to protect American taxpayer-funded research investments from unauthorized technology transfer, intellectual property theft and adversarial exploitation.
"The University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign has received a letter from the Department of War," their spokesperson, Pat Wade shared with CBS News Chicago in a statement.
Wade said that the University "takes seriously its responsibility to safeguard the U.S. research enterprise, protect sensitive and export-controlled research" and will "comply with applicable federal research security requirements while also supporting appropriate and transparent academic engagement."
The statement goes on to say that the university has "initiated a coordinated review involving appropriate campus offices and will work with DoW to provide a response to their requests. Transparent and secure international collaborations create perspectives that deepen our understanding of global challenges, promote scientific discovery, and strengthen U.S. innovation."
The Department of Defense said that the institutions are required to report their findings no later than August 31, 2026, in order to "maintain eligibility for future federal research funding."
The Pentagon didn't name the schools being audited, but a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss internal matters told the Associated Press they include Harvard University, the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and Johns Hopkins University.
Sarah Spreitzer, vice president at the American Council on Education, which represents college and university presidents, raised concerns that the announcement suggests, without any evidence, that the schools are engaged in wrongdoing.
The order comes after the Pentagon last month released an updated list of 130 foreign institutions it accused of engaging in "activities that increase the likelihood of U.S. government-funded research and development efforts being misappropriated."
While the vast majority were Chinese, such as the University of Science and Technology of China and the country's Academy of Military Medical Sciences, several Iranian and Russian institutions also appeared on the list.
The first version of the list was developed during Trump's first term, with the help of the American Council on Education, Spreitzer said.
She said most of the council's member institutions moved away from research partnerships with those institutions in the years that followed. She said she worries U.S. schools will be held liable for partnerships that predate the creation of the list.
"We don't appreciate the implication that we are not good partners on research security, given that we helped create this list, and given that we've always partnered with the federal government when there has been national security concerns," she said.
The audit comes as the Trump administration continues to express deep concern about China's activities in the Americas, pushing back on Chinese ownership of ports at either end of the Panama Canal, infrastructure projects funded by China's Belt and Road initiative in the region and Chinese investment in the telecommunications sector.
The Justice Department also is investigating whether Harvard University is allowing Chinese donors to create scholarships that exclude American students, adding to the barrage of federal inquiries the Trump administration has opened in its battle against the Ivy League school.
A spokesperson for the Chinese embassy said in a statement that the country opposes what it described as the politicization of "normal scientific, educational, and academic exchanges."
"The U.S. side," the statement continued, "should abandon the Cold War mentality and foster an open, fair, and non-discriminatory environment for educational, scientific, and people-to-people exchanges between China and the United States."