Research security report
Research security in federally funded science: A report for U.S. research leaders
See where research security risk sits in U.S. federally funded science. This report gives you 10 years of data and a risk-calibrated framework to decide how much scrutiny is enough.
48.2%
of flagged researchers stayed 24 months or less
$6.8B
in federal funding followed an entity-list affiliation
−41%
drop in entity-list share of international papers
Source: Han, X. (2026). Figures for 2024 and 2025 are lower bounds because of publication and grant reporting lag.
Get the report
Know where your exposure sits and what to do about it.
Key findings
Exposure fell, collaboration held
Entity-list ties in funded papers are down 29% from the 2018–19 peak, while international collaboration held steady.
Visiting scholars are the blind spot
48.2% of flagged researchers stayed 24 months or less. Disclosure forms were built for continuing faculty.
Funding re-entry is fast
At least $6.8 billion reached 1,687 researchers after an entity-list tie. Over 35% were funded within 12 months.
The risk is narrow and concentrated
Roughly one U.S. researcher in 70 is flagged, and 92.4% of their ties trace to organizations in China.
Entity-list: an organization named on a U.S. or allied restricted-party list.
Flagged researcher: someone who held both a U.S. and an entity-list affiliation in the same calendar year.
Every dollar recovered through litigation is a dollar that was already spent, and likely represents IP or knowledge that was already transferred.
The report in brief
What 10 years of data show
This report analyzes publication, funding, and affiliation data from the Dimensions database to measure how much research security exposure sits in U.S. federally funded science.
It finds the risk is narrow and falling: 29,423 researchers, or 1.5% of the U.S.-affiliated population, held both a U.S. and an entity-list affiliation in the same year, and the share of papers with an entity-list link is down 29% from its peak.
But progress is fragile. Flagged activity spiked in 2024, and visiting scholars sit largely outside current disclosure rules. The report closes with a four-step framework (classify, screen, assess, act) that scales cooling-off periods to each organization’s declared risk tolerance.
Researchers are not withdrawing from the world; they are making more careful choices about with whom they work.
Made for leaders who own research security
You’re accountable for what your institution certifies and how much scrutiny each collaboration gets. This report is for:
- Research security and compliance officers who now have to verify disclosures, not just collect them
- University leaders who set their institution’s risk tolerance and answer for it
- Federal program managers who screen proposals before an award is made
What you’ll discover
Ten years of data on who holds entity-list ties, where they sit, and how fast they re-enter federal funding. Then a framework you can adapt to your own risk tolerance.
- How to size your exposure against a national baseline
- How to spot the visiting-scholar gap that disclosure forms miss
- How to set cooling-off periods that match your risk tolerance
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