Case study: Unfunded collaborations
At a conference, one of our academics meets a professor from a university in the middle east. The professor shows a very strong interest in the research we undertake in the field of unmanned vehicles (some of which is funded by the Ministry of Defence). Two months later the professor gets in touch and requests that our academic hosts them in the School for six months.
While the professor is visiting they are not able to access the School’s secure lab, so use the time to sight-see and work on journal publications using data they collected at their home institution.
They use a laptop and email account provided by the School to receive the data and send drafts of the journal paper back to peers in their home nation. The journal publishes the report shortly after the professor returns home. Our academic gets an honourable mention in the paper for the support provided.
It transpires that the data in the publication is controlled under the Export Control regime and that the export of the data back to the home country should have had a licence from the UK Government (and probably should have had a licence from the professor’s home institution too).
As this was conducted using the University’s servers, the University is liable and is investigated leading to a civil or criminal prosecution. The professor had left the country and so the UK Government could not pursue them, but our academic was implicated in the investigation.
The University should have considered the origin of the professor, the subject matter and considered practically whether there was any scholarly value in the visit. They should have considered whether the professor really needed a laptop or an email account.