Scottish universities have joined a security scheme to protect its staff and research from Chinese spies. Glasgow and Edinburgh universities are among dozens across the UK to sign up to the Trusted Research programme set up by security services to reduce the risk of valuable work being stolen by foreign agents.
McCallum said: “The UK is seeing a sharp rise in aggressive attempts by other states to steal competitive advantage. It’s the same across all five of our countries. The stakes are now incredibly high on emerging technologies. McCallum gave a talk at Glasgow University in the summer when he warned that universities were “magnets” for espionage.
He said attacks from foreign powers were usually “subtle” and could include conference invitations, collaboration proposals, donations with strings attached, jointly-funded research or even through postgraduate students themselves.