The Government of Canada has launched a portal to provide information and guidance on how to protect your research.

This Safeguarding Your Research portal is a public resource created to raise awareness and provide researchers with guidance and best practices to identify and mitigate potential security risks.

The voluntary tools and guidance on the portal are meant to help all researchers across all disciplines and organizations safeguard their research.

The size and quality of Canada’s research community may create an environment where foreign governments and opportunistic individuals could seek to exploit the knowledge we create. Destabilizing influences like COVID-19 and the upcoming U.S. election increase the potential of these threats, which come in various forms.

The integrity of your research and the safety of your intellectual property may be at risk from hostile interference, including through concerted cyber intrusions or other forms of espionage. Researchers are urged to pay heightened attention to, and actively assess, potential threats.

The federal government, Universities Canada, and the U15 have created a suite of tools and resources to help you secure your research programs. Please visit the Safeguarding Your Research portal at http://www.science.gc.ca/eic/site/063.nsf/eng/h_97955.html to develop a plan to ensure your work is protected.

Researchers are asked to exercise particular diligence when travelling, establishing partnerships, identifying vendors, and welcoming personnel into your research teams. It is important to increase awareness of the potential for hostile actors within and outside the institution who may seek to access or steal the results of research for their own agendas. These individuals have been shown to include – among others – conference attendees, collaborators, students, trainees, employees, vendors, and contractors.

Additional Resources

• Safeguarding Your Research portal
• Government of Canada Policy Statement on Research Security and COVID-19
• Tool: Mitigating Economic and/or Geopolitical Risks in Sensitive Research Projects
• Tool: Travel Security Guide for University Researchers and Staff
• Tool: Western University CyberSmart
• Government Contacts