ROME — The University of Bari recently inaugurated a joint college in Chengdu focused on mathematics, physics and chemistry. The initiative is part of a broader pattern of academic partnerships with China — and comes as Italy joins initiatives that increasingly put research security front and centre, while deepening scientific cooperation with the United States, European allies and other like-minded partners.
In the background are renewed warnings from Western intelligence agencies over the risks surrounding scientific cooperation with China, ranging from espionage to the acquisition of knowledge and technologies that could serve Beijing’s strategic interests, including military ones.
Why it matters: The Bari International College highlights a tension Rome will increasingly have to manage: how to keep academic cooperation with China open while Italy becomes more deeply integrated into U.S.-led networks of trusted scientific and technological partners.
- That push towards “trusted” cooperation is not happening in a vacuum: it comes as Western governments increasingly seek to protect research ecosystems from Beijing’s use of academic and scientific ties to acquire knowledge and technologies that can strengthen China’s strategic and competitive position.
What’s on the table: The College, established with Chengdu Normal University, will offer dual-degree programmes, student and faculty mobility, and joint research activities.
- The programmes will focus on mathematics, physics and chemistry — STEM disciplines that are becoming increasingly strategic as international competition revolves more and more around the ability to develop and protect emerging technologies.
- University of Bari Rector Roberto Bellotti described the College as a “stable platform for international cooperation.”
- The College in Chengdu, the capital of southwestern China’s Sichuan province, was authorized by China’s Ministry of Education, a state body operating within an education system under the leadership of the Chinese Communist Party. Education Minister Huai Jinpeng is himself secretary of the ministry’s CCP leading group and a member of the Party’s Central Committee.
The big picture: The project comes as Italy becomes increasingly integrated into U.S.-led scientific cooperation networks.
- Rome has joined the U.S.-led Kyoto Vision, while Italy-U.S. scientific cooperation encompasses areas including artificial intelligence, high-performance computing, quantum technologies, nuclear research, biotechnology and advanced materials. Research security in critical technologies has also explicitly entered the bilateral scientific agenda.
The tension: Based on the information available, there is no evidence that the Bari-Chengdu project involves transfers of sensitive research. The broader question is what safeguards and screening mechanisms apply to structural partnerships involving joint research with China.
- An informed source says European universities, including Italian ones, continuously receive requests from Chinese academic entities seeking to establish partnerships.
- “Almost all of them concern sensitive fields. It is very rare for them to involve collaborative studies on art, ancient literature or the humanities more generally,” the source said.
The political question: This is where the Italian government comes in. The Ministry of Universities and Research should provide universities with clear guidance on the boundaries and safeguards that should apply to certain forms of international academic cooperation.
- The issue is becoming increasingly political, particularly when partnerships involve STEM, scientific research and technology. These are not only the areas in which Italy is strengthening the sharing of knowledge, infrastructure and capabilities with the United States and other trusted partners.
- They are also the fields where Western governments and intelligence agencies have increasingly warned of Chinese efforts to leverage academic and scientific cooperation to gain access to strategically valuable knowledge, expertise and technologies.
Zoom out: Italy is not alone. Across several European countries, university partnerships with Chinese institutions have already fuelled debate over whether universities are equipped to assess not only individual projects, but also their partners, sources of funding and the potential downstream use of jointly developed knowledge.
The bottom line: Italy’s growing alignment with trusted scientific and technological partners is not simply another track running alongside cooperation with China. It reflects a broader shift towards research ecosystems in which partners share safeguards, strategic interests and confidence over the ultimate use of knowledge and technology — conditions that Western security concerns over Beijing increasingly suggest cannot be assumed in scientific cooperation with China.
