EU research security rules are reshaping university autonomy, study argues

A new analysis argues that the European Union’s rapidly expanding security-oriented regulation is quietly reconfiguring how universities and public research bodies operate, forcing them to reconcile their foundational commitment to open science with a growing web of obligations governing who they collaborate with, what they may share, and how they protect sensitive knowledge. The paper, published in Frontiers in Political Science, examines the tension between academic freedom and security governance across a regulatory landscape that now includes the AI Act, the Dual-Use Export Control Regulation, the NIS2 Directive, the GDPR, and the 2024 Council Recommendation on Research Security.

According to the authors, Roberto Cippitani of Italy’s National Research Council and the Universidad Nacional de Educación a Distancia in Madrid, and María Isabel Cornejo-Plaza of the Universidad Autónoma de Chile, the pressure on research institutions is intensifying as geopolitical competition sharpens in fields such as artificial intelligence, quantum computing, and biotechnology. Universities therefore find themselves caught between two governance mandates: their traditional role as open, internationally connected environments of knowledge production, and an increasingly layered architecture of security obligations concerning third-country partnerships, classified information, and controlled knowledge flows.

A central theoretical claim of the paper concerns how EU research security actually operates. Instead, they contend, EU research security works predominantly through routine and precautionary logics, enacted day to day by bureaucrats, funders, security professionals, and academics themselves.

Crucially, the authors situate this routine securitisation within a constitutional framework. Because the European Union is bound by its Charter of Fundamental Rights, security measures affecting research are subject to principles of proportionality and can in principle be tested through judicial review.

To map this emerging landscape, the analysis draws on the European Research Area framework and the European Economic Security Strategy, alongside the EU’s open science and data acquis—the accumulated body of rules and policies promoting open publication, data sharing, and research transparency. Universities and public research bodies must operate simultaneously under both, and the paper identifies the key institutional dilemmas this creates for their authority, accountability structures, and operational autonomy.

The practical contribution of the paper is a principles-based governance framework that universities and research bodies may adopt to navigate these competing demands. Rather than prescribing a single rigid compliance model, the framework is designed to help institutions balance openness, accountability, and security while preserving their role as autonomous environments of knowledge production within a democratic polity.

The paper also positions itself within the politics of technology literature, analysing how security imperatives are reshaping the governance of European research institutions more broadly. As regulatory instruments originally aimed at cybersecurity, data protection, export control, and artificial intelligence converge on the research sector, the authors argue that the cumulative effect is a redefinition of what universities are and how they are governed—not through a single dramatic intervention, but through the accumulation of routine requirements that each seem reasonable in isolation.

The analysis is a conceptual and legal-policy study rather than an empirical measurement of effects on research practice; it maps frameworks and proposes design principles rather than reporting data on how institutions have responded. Its keywords—academic freedom, digital infrastructure governance, EU AI governance, institutional autonomy, open science, para-diplomacy, politics of technology, and proportionality—signal the breadth of the governance terrain it covers. The authors state that the claims expressed are solely their own and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organisations or the publisher. As geopolitical competition in strategic technologies continues to intensify, the paper offers European universities a framework for holding onto their dual identity as both open scientific communities and governed institutions accountable to a democratic legal order.

Subject of Research: How EU research security regulation affects academic freedom and institutional autonomy in European universities

Article Title: Freedom of research and security in the present geopolitical context: legal, ethical, and institutional frameworks for European universities and research bodies

Article References: Cippitani, R., & Cornejo-Plaza, M. I. (2026). Freedom of research and security in the present geopolitical context: legal, ethical, and institutional frameworks for European universities and research bodies. Frontiers in Political Science, 8, Article 1888386. https://doi.org/10.3389/fpos.2026.1888386

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.3389/fpos.2026.1888386

Keywords: academic freedom, research security, European Union, AI Act, dual-use export control, NIS2 Directive, open science, institutional autonomy, proportionality, geopolitical competition, research governance, EU Charter of Fundamental Rights