The House Select Committee on China, led by Republican Rep. John Moolenaar, is demanding the National Science Foundation pause a $67 million research-security program called SECURE while it reviews university partners who have links to Chinese military and defense institutions. The committee warns that two major awardees, the University of Washington and Texas A&M, stand to receive most of the funds despite troubling collaborations with entities tied to the People’s Republic of China. This push frames the issue as one of taxpayer protection and national security, asking the NSF to prove these awards won’t aid adversaries. The deadline for the agency to answer the committee’s questions has been set for March 31.
Moolenaar’s letter to NSF Interim Director Brian Stone asks for an immediate suspension of SECURE funding and a thorough institutional review before taxpayer dollars flow. The SECURE initiative is billed as a program to bolster research security, but the committee says the institutions leading it have conflicting relationships that undermine its purpose. At stake is $67 million intended to build tools, infrastructure and analysis to protect U.S. research.
“The program is intended to develop tools, data infrastructure, and analytic capabilities for assessing research-security risks,” the letter says, pointing out the irony that the very schools charged with building defenses have active ties to suspect Chinese entities. The committee documents joint work and coauthorship between researchers at U.S. universities and PRC-linked defense organizations. That kind of overlap, the letter argues, raises obvious red flags for anyone worried about sensitive technologies leaking to strategic rivals.
The committee highlights joint publications and projects involving China’s Academy of Military Medical Sciences and universities known as the “Seven Sons of National Defense,” work that touches on artificial intelligence, advanced materials and other dual-use fields. Those areas have clear national security implications, and the concern is that research outputs could be repurposed by military or surveillance programs. The letter labels some of these academic ties as dangerous and incompatible with protecting U.S. research.
The University of Washington is slated to receive roughly $50 million from the SECURE grant, while Texas A&M is set to receive about $17 million. The committee calls the University of Washington’s relationships “high-risk research relationships with PRC military- and defense-linked institutions.” Texas A&M’s collaborations, the letter says, include work with the PLA’s National University of Defense Technology and the Harbin Institute of Technology, partnerships the committee views as especially problematic.
The lawmakers stress that federally funded research should not create back doors for foreign military research and industrial bases to access American taxpayer-funded advances. “Institutions entrusted with U.S. taxpayer dollars to safeguard the nation’s research enterprise should not simultaneously enable foreign adversaries to access and exploit sensitive research and taxpayer-funded scientific advances,” Moolenaar wrote. That line pins the central argument to fiscal responsibility and protecting American innovation.
“These joint research projects detailed above raise serious concerns about allocating taxpayer dollars for research security initiatives to institutions like TAMU and UW—institutions with documented and ongoing failures in safeguarding U.S. research from PRC defense entities,” Moolenaar said, adding that it is “troubling that U.S. institutions that collaborate with China’s defense research and industrial base, its nuclear weapons programs, its mass surveillance infrastructure, and institutions on U.S. government national security lists are being entrusted to co-lead the development of national research security frameworks.”
The congressman demands the NSF check compliance with federal rules, including National Security Presidential Memorandum 33, Section 117 of the Higher Education Act, and applicable export control laws. He also raises potential violations of the Wolf Amendment, which restricts certain bilateral research ties with the Chinese government. The letter wraps up with four explicit requests designed to force transparency and accountability from the agency and the participating universities.
Among the committee’s formal requests are a pause on SECURE contract funding pending a “full review” and delivery of the results of that review to Congress. The letter asks NSF to “provide the award and contract details for the SECURE Initiative” and to answer whether it is appropriate for universities to use U.S. taxpayer funds to conduct research in collaboration with known Chinese defense research and industrial base entities or entities implicated in human rights violations. “Will NSF update its terms and conditions to expressly prohibit the use of award funds to conduct research with, or for the benefit of, any entity that appears on a publicly available U.S. government entity list?” the last question in the letter asks. “If not, please explain why.”
“NSF will respond directly to the Committee’s letter,” an NSF spokesperson said, signaling that the agency will engage with the committee’s demands. The University of Washington provided a statement defending SECURE as a flexible program that helps campuses strengthen research security and said it routinely reviews and updates its protocols. The exchange sets up a formal process where federal standards and university practices will be tested under congressional scrutiny.
