In an ideal world, all research would be openly available to everyone worldwide with equal sharing of information, data and discoveries to benefit humankind. Researchers would share with each other and with other universities, other nations and across the globe. Honesty, integrity, transparency, accountability to funders and one another, mutual respect and fundamental fairness would drive research in collaborative and trusting academic environments.
In an ideal world...
Regrettably, this is not the world we live in today.
For years, reports from the United States Congress, private research institutes, industry and law enforcement have stressed that academic institutions have been targeted by nation states and foreign actors desiring to enhance their capabilities especially in the hard sciences (biomedical, computer technology, electronics, etc.). Rigorous physical and cyber protections are found in many governments and private industries; however, the open and accessible environments of higher education have meant that universities pose easy soft targets for theft of research data, information, applied techniques and scholarly knowledge.
The "open environment" of the university has fostered innovation but has also lured nefarious actors to obtain research data, knowledge, or expertise through both ethical and unethical methods. Enhanced by the desire of nation states and foreign actors to accelerate their capabilities and capacities in research, universities are forced to posture in ways that protect the intellectual property of researchers and the institutions for which they work. This situation is mirrored at the federal level as the U.S. government (USG) is imposing stricter security requirements for industry and imposing more requirements on larger research universities that utilize federal funding. It is important for universities to recognize that a continual assessment of risk and appropriate responses to those risks will help signal to the USG that the university self-governing and security management processes can and do work and that additional federal oversight is not required.
The IU Research Security Office (RSO) was created by the Office of the Vice President for Research to address the security risks posed to the research environment at Indiana University and assist researchers with efforts to protect themselves, their research data and methodologies, publication rights, and intellectual property.