Research awareness
The University is committed to providing an effective environment for our international activities. However we are operating in an increasingly complex international and regulatory environment and as a university and individuals, we must comply with Government legislation.
If you want to sign a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) or other agreements with your external collaborators, the University needs to do certain checks before you can sign it. This applies even if there are no details of the activities to be undertaken at this point in time. Due diligence on the entities, which your collaborators are affiliated with, will need to be performed before any agreement is signed.
The Government's Trusted Research guidance aims to maximise international collaborations whilst protecting intellectual property, sensitive research and personal information. We encourage all of our academics to familiarise themselves with this information, and to follow the below guidance when carrying out research at the University.
1. Check whether the organisation you’re working with (including your collaborators and funders) has a comprehensive website
2. The Export Controls Compliance (ECC) team uses a number of international government lists to check entities (institution or organisation), collaborators and funders of concern. You are free to search these lists for a collaborator/funder/institution, however the team will be responsible for making the comprehensive searches required to comply with export controls regulations, if necessary.
For the following lists use ‘Control+F’ (for Windows users), or ‘Command+F’ (for Mac users) to search for an entity name:
- US embargoed entity list
- US embargoed unverified list
- Office of Foreign Assets Control Specially Designated Nationals and Blocked Persons list
- UN sanctions list
The following list is a search engine — type in your collaborator/funder name.
If any of the factors above raise concerns, please email the ECC team who will be able to support you where necessary.
If none of your preliminary searches shows concerns, remember that the ECC team performs a more exhaust due diligence so please contact them before engaging with external institutions.