Trade, Technology, and the Ivory Tower: Mapping Export Control Risks in Higher Education

As universities navigate their dual roles as producers of tightly regulated research and development on the one hand and hubs of global knowledge exchange on the other, university actors are increasingly prone to violations of export controls: legal restrictions on the export of goods and services to foreign entities. This article develops a typology of export control violations at universities (ECVUs), identifying seven mechanisms through which export-controlled technologies held at universities may be illicitly transferred in the course of regular university business: publications, teaching, sales, research partnerships, employment, diversion, and theft. Through a case study of a series of ECVUs that occurred at a physics laboratory at an American university in 2008, we demonstrate the analytical utility of our typology in both in grouping like cases and differentiating unlike cases. This article offers practical guidance for university actors and institutions in identifying high-risk activities for ECVUs, and positions institutes of higher education as important stakeholders in national export control regimes.