It was an impressive selection of international and national experts and guests who accepted the Helmholtz Association’s invitation to the research security workshop on November 11th and 12th, 2024: representatives from research organizations, universities, national and international think tanks and politics from more than 15 countries met in Berlin. For the fourth time, Germany‘s largest research organization is creating a platform for international exchange and supporting the development of a community of practice.
Top research depends not least on collaboration with the best partners worldwide. Helmholtz, for example, maintains countless international collaborations and thousands of researchers from all continents work in Helmholtz centers. Due to the geopolitical challenges of our time, the uncertainties that can arise from these collaborations have grown in recent years. Nationally and internationally, actors in the science system are developing new instruments and standards in order to continue to make research as open as possible and as safe as necessary. The most important approaches are sensitizing those involved, defining red lines, building country and culture-specific competence and creating advisory services. What exactly these approaches can look like in practice, what experiences there are and how the instruments have to adapt to current developments were the subject of the discussion.
Best practice examples from the Netherlands, Spain, Great Britain, Canada and the USA were presented and discussed. Mirko van Muijen from the EU Commission, for example, presented the latest developments at EU level and emphasized the importance of a common European approach. In a panel moderated by Georgios Kollarakis from the EU-Global Export Control Program for Dual Use Goods, there was a debate about research results that can have both civil and military applications. The question of how research security in science can be specifically implemented and financed was also raised again and again. In recent years, Helmholtz has set up a number of projects that were presented and discussed in a separate panel.
The most recent developments in Germany were also discussed, such as the stakeholder process initiated by the BMBF and the question of whether a central advisory center for research security, like those set up in the Netherlands or France, would also be the right path for Germany.
