Foreign students face tightened U.K. security checks

Published 13 November 2007

Foreign students applying for graduate study in the U.K. in 41 science and engineering subjects now must pass extra security screening

Some twenty years ago — this was before 9/11 — technical schools in the United States became a bit more selective in accepting students for programs in nuclear engineering and similar topics. Students from Iran and Iraq, for example, were not accepted. Now we learn that the British government has quietly introduced a program of security checks on foreign students coming to the United Kingdom for graduate studies in the sciences and engineering. The Academic Technology Approval Scheme (ATAS) began on 1 November. It requires all graduate students from outside the European Economic Area and Switzerland to complete an online questionnaire if they intend to study any of a broad range of scientific disciplines, including biology, physics, chemistry, and mathematics. The questionnaire, which includes questions about family background, must be vetted and approved by U.K. security agencies before students are allowed to apply for visas to enter the United Kingdom. The list of disciplines includes forty-one subject areas, and the government estimates that some 23,000 students will be affected. Nature’s Geoff Brumfiel writes that the screenings are designed to prevent the spread of sensitive knowledge to foreign nationals, according to a spokesman for the U.K. Foreign & Commonwealth Office (FCO). Sensitive fields such as nuclear physics and microbiology could easily be turned to malicious purposes, he says. “You can think of half a dozen countries where you don’t want this technology getting into the wrong hands,” he adds. Some researchers expressed skepticism about the plan. The vast majority of academic research lies in the public domain, and it remains unclear how the government will decide who should have access to “sensitive” subjects. “This is not a very intelligent scheme,” says Peter Littlewood, chair of the physics department at the University of Cambridge. “It seems unlikely to make a positive contribution to security, and for most students will be an extra hoop to jump through that will encourage them to go elsewhere.”

The ATAS replaces a system of voluntary reporting by U.K. universities. Under that system, individual schools notified the FCO if they suspected a student of pursuing a sensitive subject for improper reasons. The government decided voluntary reporting was insufficient, according to the FCO spokesman. “The system now is going to be much more robust,” he says. It will also mean more paperwork for researchers. As part of the ATAS application, departments will have to provide a brief