Strider Report Reveals Scale of Australian and New Zealand Academic Research Done in Collaboration with PLA-affiliated Entities on STEM Technologies

• Strider identifies more than 6,000 joint publications and collaborations between researchers from 80 Australian organisations and Chinese government linked institutions since 2020.
• Collaborations cover technologies that could enhance China’s military capability.
• Includes more than 300 papers co-authored with a Seven Sons university sanctioned by the U.S. for attempting to acquire U.S.-origin items in support of programs for the People’s Liberation Army.
  
  

Sydney (19^th May 2026): Strider Technologies, the leading provider of strategic intelligence, has today published a new report revealing extensive collaboration between Australian and New Zealand universities and Chinese state-linked institutions that develop technology for military use.

The report warns that the People’s Republic of China (PRC) is exploiting the openness of the innovation systems in Australia and New Zealand to strengthen its defence and strategic capabilities.

Strider’s report – From Innovation to Weaponisation: How China Exploits the Australian and New Zealand Open Scientific Systems – finds that since 2020, researchers from more than 80 Australian organizations have co-authored over 6,000 scientific papers with People’s Liberation Army-affiliated research organisations (PLA-RI). The report also identifies more than 10 New Zealand organisations that have collaborated with PLA-RI on more than 500 STEM publications in that same time. These partnerships look at strategic dual-use technologies such as artificial intelligence and aerospace systems, as well as technology with a high likelihood of military applications such as communication jamming, target tracking, and swarm-enabled precision striking capabilities.

The report highlights significant collaboration with the “Seven Sons of National Defence,” a consortium of PRC universities integral to the country’s defence and weapons development. It also documents more than 150 joint publications with the PLA National University of Defence Technology, an institution subordinate to the Central Military Commission of the Chinese Communist Party and sanctioned by the U.S. government for posing national security risks.

“Academic openness is one of Western society’s great strengths, but it has now become a vulnerability,” said Eric Levesque, President and Co-Founder of Strider. “Our analysis shows that the PRC government is systematically leveraging Australian and New Zealand scientific partnerships to accelerate its technological and military ambitions. These are not benign collaborations. They involve state-run research entities that directly support China’s defence establishment, advancing the PLA at the expense of Australia and New Zealand.”

Levesque continued: “This is not about blaming individual academics; it’s about recognising a systemic risk. These universities and research bodies are being targeted precisely because they lead the world in areas that underpin next-generation defence and intelligence capabilities. The government has taken important steps, but voluntary compliance and awareness campaigns are not enough. It’s time for universities to take a clear stand and end research that contributes to China’s military build-up.”

In 2025, Australian Security Intelligence Organisation (ASIO) Director General Mike Burgess warned of the unprecedented espionage efforts of countries, including the PRC, targeting Australian organisations to steal innovation and technologies. Chinese collaborators are now listed on a larger share of Australian research outputs than collaborators from any other single country. The Defence Trade Controls Amendment Act 2024 strengthened Australia’s legal framework for protecting sensitive technologies. Additionally, Australian university researchers are subjected to export control requirements designed to prevent the unauthorised transfer of sensitive technology and knowledge.

Meanwhile, New Zealand’s Security Intelligence Service (NZSIS) identified China as the most active foreign state conducting interference in the country in its 2025 Security Threat Environment report. The report also warned that the open and collaborative nature of academic institutions makes them particularly vulnerable to exploitation.

Despite new guidance from the Australian and New Zealand governments and enhanced national security measures, Strider’s analysis finds that collaboration between the countries’ researchers and PLA-affiliated research institutions (PLA-RIs) has remained persistently high over the past five years. These partnerships provide pathways for knowledge transfer, talent recruitment, and potential exploitation by China’s state-directed science and technology apparatus. Specifically, Strider found that:

• Despite increased government efforts to strengthen research security and raise institutional awareness, collaboration between Australian researchers and PLA-RIs has remained persistently high since 2020, averaging more than 1,000 joint publications annually through 2025. In New Zealand, that number averages about 100 publications each year.
• More than 80 Australian organisations have collaborated with a PLA-RI on STEM topics since 2020. Among the Australian organisations that have the most instances of collaboration with PLA-RI are leading universities and government laboratories.
• More than 10 New Zealand organizations have collaborated with a PLA-RI on more than 500 STEM publications.

“Australian and New Zealand universities can no longer afford to manage state-sponsored research risk on the basis of anecdote,” said Paul Maddison, Strider’s Australia and New Zealand Country Manager and former High Commissioner of Canada for Australia. “Strider enables them to move to decision-quality insight across their entire research networks covering risk to individual researchers, sensitive IP, start-up supply chains, reputation, revenue, and critically, the trust-based relationships they hold with Commonwealth and Five Eyes funders. The data exists. The question is whether institutions choose to act on it.”

The full report, From Innovation to Weaponisation: How China Exploits the Australian and New Zealand Open Scientific System, is available here.

About Strider

Strider is the leading strategic intelligence company empowering organizations to secure and advance their technology and innovation. Leveraging cutting-edge AI technology alongside proprietary methodologies, Strider transforms publicly available data into critical insights. This increased intelligence enables organizations to proactively address and respond to risks associated with state-sponsored intellectual property theft, targeted talent acquisition, and third-party partners. Strider has operations in 16 countries around the globe with offices in Salt Lake City, Washington, DC, London, Tokyo; and Sydney.