China, explained.

Australian universities now operate within strengthened expectations around foreign-interference awareness, due diligence and risk assessment (Kayaan Udachia/Unsplash)

How scrutiny is impacting Australia-China educational research

While research ties remain strong, increased security calls for specific assessment of the risk and benefits of collaboration.

Xing Xu,Ly Tran

13 October 20264 min read

Australia-China education relations are usually measured through student mobility, institutional agreements, and transnational education partnerships. But another important part of the relationship receives less attention: educational researchers in the two countries producing knowledge together.

This dimension has become significant as Australia strengthens the security governance of international research. Australia’s Foreign Relations (State and Territory Arrangements) Amendment Act 2026 (Opens in new window) requires universities to identify and assess research projects involving foreign entities against Australia’s national interest and foreign policy considerations.

Our recent study (Opens in new window) shows that Australia-China educational research collaboration has grown over the past decade, even amid diplomatic tensions and heightened national security concerns. For the bilateral education relationship, the message is important: Australia-China engagement runs deeper than student recruitment, and established research ties may provide foundations for cooperation in areas where risks are low and potential public benefits substantial.

Scholarly relationships, shared research interests and researchers’ professional autonomy can sustain cooperation even when the wider political relationship becomes more difficult.

We examined education articles indexed in Web of Science co-authored by researchers affiliated with Australia and China between 2015 and 2024. Annual output increased from 33 articles in 2015 to more than 100 for the first time in 2022, before reaching its highest level in 2024. Publications rose by 53.7% between 2023 and 2024 alone, with articles published in 2024 accounting for 22.5% of the 10-year dataset. This pattern complicates any assumption that geopolitical tension automatically produces academic disengagement. Scholarly relationships, shared research interests and researchers’ professional autonomy can sustain cooperation even when the wider political relationship becomes more difficult.

Publication growth does not mean geopolitics has had no effect. Publications are lagging indicators, and co-authorship data cannot capture projects that were delayed or abandoned before producing a paper. Our findings demonstrate resilience, not immunity, to geopolitical pressure.

However, this overall growth masks a more fragile underlying structure. Australia-China educational research may look extensive in aggregate – while the relationships connecting individual universities and researchers remain thin. Among 510 contributing authors, we identified 51 separate groups of connected researchers. The largest brought together 281 researchers, or 55.1% of the network, and had become substantially more interconnected by 2024. Many of the most central researchers were established, highly cited scholars. Their networks help connect institutions and research teams, but this also means that resilience may depend disproportionately on a relatively small number of people.

This concentration has another significance. Researchers who bridge Australia-China networks can help sustain academic engagement when institutional relationships become more difficult, but their cross-border connections may also attract greater scrutiny. Network resilience and research security concerns can intersect around the same researchers.

Australia-China educational research is also not simply a two-country relationship. The wider network featured prominent participation from the United States, the United Kingdom and Canada, alongside New Zealand and Singapore. This matters because international research collaboration increasingly operates through interconnected global networks. Weakening one bilateral relationship can have consequences beyond the two countries concerned.

Australian universities now operate within strengthened expectations around foreign-interference awareness, due diligence and risk assessment. Government guidance (Opens in new window) reinforces these responsibilities – but also states that safeguards should be proportionate to risk and should support rather than restrict low-risk academic activity.

Australia-China educational research may look extensive in aggregate – while the relationships connecting individual universities and researchers remain thin (Tat Linh Nguyen/Unsplash)

Importantly, these measures respond to overall concerns about foreign interference and research security. But foreign interference is not synonymous with international collaboration, and security risk cannot be determined simply by the nationality of a research partner. Our findings show why that distinction matters. A collaboration involving sensitive infrastructure or strategically critical technology is not equivalent to research on teacher education, language learning or early childhood education. Risks can also differ within education. Our study found influential work at the intersection of educational technology, computing and data-driven learning, showing why disciplinary labels alone are insufficient.

There is also a broader issue of research securitisation. As international research is increasingly viewed through a national security lens, security considerations can reshape legitimate academic relationships. Therefore, universities need to distinguish evidence of a specific risk from broader geopolitical sensitivity.

The practical response is to move away from blanket classifications of Australia-China research collaboration as either safe or risky. Universities need more nuanced assessments that consider the research itself, the data and technologies involved, funding sources, partners and intended applications. This can protect legitimate national security interests without unnecessarily constraining lower-risk, potentially high-value research that advances the public good.

Our study also shows a larger opportunity. Education is an area in which Australia and China have already built substantial research relationships around wider public value, from teacher preparation and language learning to higher education and digital learning. Where risks are low, these established networks should provide foundations for responsibly strengthening cooperation. Universities can also broaden the foundations of collaboration through seed funding, joint workshops, doctoral and early-career researcher networks, mentoring and mobility opportunities, turning individual relationships into wider institutional capacity.

The broader lesson is that Australia-China research ties are more resilient and diverse than geopolitical narratives might suggest. As Australia strengthens its research security framework, the future of these relationships will depend on whether risk assessment is precise to identify real concerns while preserving legitimate knowledge exchange and collaboration. In areas such as education, where relationships exist and research can serve the public good, the question is not simply how much collaboration Australia should permit, but where and how it can be responsibly facilitated.

About the authors

Xing Xu

Dr Xing Xu is a Deakin University Postdoctoral Research Fellow. Her research focuses on international higher education, particularly international students and international research collaboration.

Ly Tran

Ly Tran is a Professor in the School of Education, Deakin University, and a former Australian Research Council (ARC) Future Fellow on the New Colombo Plan.

Topics

China Australia