Governing knowledge, shaping Europe: research security in the EU’s geopolitical turn

This article examines how the European Union’s turn towards research and knowledge security reflects a transformation in its geopolitical identity. Moving beyond the language of “technological sovereignty”, it conceptualises this shift as the emergence of an epistemic form of sovereignty that governs the conditions of knowledge production and exchange. Drawing on Balzacq’s (Citation2010) practice-based theory of securitisation, the study introduces the notion of securitisation through governance to capture how security rationales are embedded in bureaucratic and regulatory instruments rather than enacted through exceptional measures. Empirically, the analysis traces EU and national policy developments between 2013 and 2025, examining how supranational frameworks are translated into national practice in five Member States: the Netherlands, Germany, Finland, Italy, and Hungary. The findings show that securitisation unfolds as a multi-level process of coordination, translation and adaptation, producing a distinctly European form of geopolitical pragmatism that seeks to reconcile openness with protection, values with interests, and academic freedom with strategic control. By showing how security becomes embedded within routine research governance, the article argues that the EU performs its geopolitical actorness not through coercion but through the regulation of vulnerability, governing knowledge as both a strategic resource and a risk.