The Government supports decisions on international research collaborations through the Trusted Research campaign. Additionally, BEIS is establishing a Research Collaboration Advice Team which will work directly with institutions to help embed best practice.

Research partnerships must remain within the limits of the law and the government reserves the right to intervene where they are not in the national interest or breach domestic or international law.

UKRI has not directly funded any research projects involving Neusoft in the past 5 years.

As autonomous bodies, decisions regarding partnerships lie with individual higher education providers. We encourage the sector to collaborate with international partners and universities must be security minded in their approach in order to safeguard our core values. University due diligence processes should consider reputational, ethical and security risks.

At the request of my right hon. Friend, the Minister of State for Higher and Further Education, Universities UK, on behalf of the sector and with government support, published guidelines in October 2020 to help universities tackle security risks related to international collaboration.

We continuously strengthen protective measures and expect universities to do the same.