Report
Shifting the needle: Making Australia’s research security ecosystem work smarter
Shifting the needle: Making Australia’s research security ecosystem work smarter, pp.1-24
Australian Strategic Policy Institute
06/2025
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Abstract
Since 2018, the Australian Government has made serious strides in countering espionage and foreign interference, including introducing policy and legislative reforms aimed at protecting the research and university sector. That was necessary. Foreign states have actively targeted Australia’s research ecosystem—seeking to influence research agendas, extract sensitive information and exploit institutional vulnerabilities. However, the threat landscape hasn’t remained static. It has evolved—and rapidly.
Seven years on, adversaries are no longer simply stealing data or cultivating informal relationships. Today, we’re seeing deliberate efforts to insert malicious insiders, target researchers through transnational repression, exploit data and cyber vulnerabilities, and manipulate legal frameworks through lawfare. Those methods are more sophisticated, more targeted and more integrated than ever before. Responding to them requires more than a continuation of current practice—it demands a fundamental shift in mindset. Security must now be built on persistent adaptation and shared responsibility, not one-off compliance measures.
Details
- Title
- Shifting the needle: Making Australia’s research security ecosystem work smarter
- Creators
- Brendan Walker-Munro - Southern Cross University
- Publication Details
- Shifting the needle: Making Australia’s research security ecosystem work smarter, pp.1-24
- Publisher
- Australian Strategic Policy Institute; Australia, Canberra
- Number of pages
- 24
- Identifiers
- 991013297054602368
- Copyright
- © The Australian Strategic Policy Institute Limited 2025
- Academic Unit
- Faculty of Business, Law and Arts
- Language
- English
- Resource Type
- Report