The KNOWSEC-NL project, titled ‘Fostering the Resilience of the Dutch Knowledge Sector: Knowledge Security and Research in a Geopolitical Context’, examines the dilemmas posed by the EU's dependence on international research collaboration for technological innovation in cutting-edge fields, including quantum technologies, artificial intelligence (AI), biotechnologies, and clean energy. In an era of geopolitical rivalries, such collaboration carries risks of misappropriation or strategic capture of sensitive knowledge and technology. It explores how major global powers leverage knowledge and innovation for security, what drawbacks there are, and how such drawbacks can be addressed.

"Sensitive" technologies and collaborations

SEVEN's involvement centres on a question that sits squarely at the intersection of climate policy and security: the materials and technologies needed to drive the energy transition may, in significant part, be the same technologies governments have flagged as posing security risks.

Meeting the targets of the Paris Agreement depends on technologies such as hydrogen production and storage, nuclear energy, and the photonics and advanced materials that underpin everything from offshore wind monitoring to smart grids and battery systems. Many of these now appear on lists of "sensitive" technologies, including under the Netherlands' proposed screening legislation (Wet screening kennisveiligheid), precisely because they can also serve military or dual-use purposes.

This creates a genuine tension. Decarbonisation at the necessary pace and scale requires deep international scientific collaboration, including with countries such as China, while that same collaboration carries risks of misappropriation or strategic capture of sensitive knowledge.

SEVEN aims to contribute knowledge on how to strike a defensible balance between the cooperation that decarbonisation requires and the protection of security, and on the grounds for doing so. Which types of materials and technologies critical to the energy transition actually pose knowledge security risks? What role do international obligations relating to the energy transition play in striking the balance, and how can forms of cooperation be identified that balance both interests? And how can institutions engaged in research in this field be supported in striking this balance? This is the contribution that three SEVEN-affiliated researchers bring to the consortium.

For SEVEN, André Nollkaemper  examines the international law dimension: how international legal obligations, including those that protect or require scientific cooperation for the energy transition alongside those that protect security, bear on this balancing exercise, and what normative conditions — academic freedom, human rights such as non-discrimination and the right to science, and proportionality — can guide it.

Joost Reek and Bob van der Zwaan provide expertise on the nature and risks of the materials and technologies central to sustainability and energy policy, and on what makes them sensitive from a knowledge-security perspective.

Aims

The aim of the project is to build a framework that helps institutions balance international collaboration with rising geopolitical risks. To achieve this, the research consortium is partnering with practitioners to refine Dutch and European policies, distribute best practices, and train research teams.

Broader consortium

This work forms part of a broader interdisciplinary effort, led by Hylke Dijkstra and Mariëlle Wijermars of Maastricht University, involving cooperation with the TMC Asser Institute, for which Machiko Kanetake leads two work packages.  The co-applicants include, in addition to UvA, the University of Twente, Delft University of Technology, the University of Groningen, Utrecht University, HU University of Applied Sciences Utrecht, the Netherlands Defence Academy, the Rathenau Institute, and Centrum Wiskunde & Informatica.

Societal partners include the Dutch Ministries of Foreign Affairs and Defence, SURF, Neth-ER, Amsterdam UMC, the Netherlands Aerospace Centre, and TNO, as well as international partners such as KTH Royal Institute of Technology, CISPA Helmholtz Center for Information Security, University of Liège, University of Barcelona, and the Science History Institute.