FusionLabs Professional Training
Research Security in Practice: A Course for Research Security Practitioners
An implementation-focused online course for professionals responsible for designing, operating, or supporting institutional research-security programs.
Course overview
Move from policy to implementation
Research security has become an important institutional responsibility for universities, research institutes, funders, and organizations working with advanced or strategically significant technologies.
Effective implementation requires more than high-level policy. Institutions need practical governance arrangements, due-diligence processes, risk-assessment methods, mitigation options, escalation pathways, and documented workflows.
This course helps practitioners translate research-security principles into proportionate institutional processes that protect research while enabling responsible collaboration.
Why this course
Research security needs operational workflows
The course is built around implementation decisions: what should trigger review, what information should be gathered, how risk should be assessed, what safeguards may be appropriate, and when a matter should be escalated.
Research-security concerns can arise through proposed partnerships, funding, visitor access, technology transfer, procurement, data access, commercialization, undisclosed affiliations, foreign interference, export controls, and sanctions.
These issues often cut across several institutional offices. A workable program therefore requires clear responsibilities, shared decision-making, evidence-based due diligence, proportionate controls, and defensible documentation.
Participants work through realistic cases and implementation questions rather than treating research security as a purely theoretical or legal subject.
Who should attend
Designed for research-security implementation
The course is intended for professionals involved in establishing, coordinating, or supporting research-security functions.
- Research-security officers and program leads
- Research administrators and sponsored-program staff
- Export-control and sanctions professionals
- Institutional compliance and legal teams
- Conflict-of-interest and disclosure personnel
- Information-security and data-governance professionals
- International partnerships and collaboration teams
- Research office and grants-management staff
- Laboratory, facility, and visitor-management personnel
- Senior leaders responsible for research governance
No specialist legal background is required, although the course is designed for practitioners rather than a general employee audience.
Learning outcomes
What you will be able to do
Define research security and distinguish it from research integrity, cybersecurity, and export controls.
Identify major risks across people, partners, projects, technologies, data, funding, and access.
Design governance arrangements with clear responsibilities, decision authority, and escalation pathways.
Conduct proportionate due diligence on organizations, individuals, and proposed research activities.
Translate due-diligence findings into specific, evidence-based risk statements.
Identify practical mitigation measures and assess whether residual risk remains acceptable.
Apply green, yellow, and red decision logic across institutional workflows.
Document decisions and build a mature, proportionate, and non-discriminatory program.
Curriculum
Seven implementation-focused modules
Open each section to view the focus of the module.
Module 1 — Introduction to research security
Define research security, understand why it matters, distinguish it from related disciplines, and examine the balance between protection and responsible collaboration.
Module 2 — Research-security risks
Examine problematic partnerships, undisclosed relationships, sensitive research, technology transfer, foreign interference, cyber threats, export controls, sanctions, and risk indicators.
Module 3 — Governance and accountability
Explore leadership, institutional responsibilities, organizational models, policies, decision-making, escalation, documentation, and research-security culture.
Module 4 — Due diligence
Apply a proportionate approach to partner, person, and project due diligence; use internal and external information sources; identify risk indicators; and document findings.
Module 5 — Risk identification and mitigation
Move from evidence to risk, match safeguards to specific concerns, assess residual risk, determine when mitigation is insufficient, and prepare matters for escalation.
Module 6 — Export controls and sanctions
Understand physical and intangible transfers, end users and end uses, restricted-party screening, sanctions, research-related exclusions, and activities requiring specialist review.
Module 7 — Research security in practice
Embed review into institutional workflows, apply green/yellow/red decision logic, use workflow-specific mitigations, and assess program maturity.
Capstone exercise
Apply the course framework to a complex institutional case requiring due diligence, risk identification, mitigation, escalation, and a documented decision.
Final course wrap-up
Consolidate the central concepts and identify practical next steps for strengthening institutional implementation.
Included resources
Adaptable implementation materials
The course is supported by downloadable materials and templates that can be adapted for institutional use.
Due Diligence and Risk Assessment Form
A structured form for gathering information, recording findings, identifying risks, considering mitigations, and documenting decisions.
Institutional Implementation Materials
Adaptable resources designed to support governance, workflow design, review processes, and internal guidance.
Risk and Mitigation References
Practical examples linking common concerns to proportionate safeguards, escalation, monitoring, and residual-risk decisions.
Learning experience
Practical, evidence-based, and implementation-focused
Workflow-driven
The course connects research-security review to proposal development, partnerships, visitors, data access, procurement, and commercialization.
Case-based
Realistic scenarios require participants to assess incomplete information, identify risks, consider mitigations, and determine when to escalate.
Institutionally adaptable
The frameworks and materials can be adapted to different legal systems, institutional structures, risk profiles, and research environments.
Institutional delivery
Course access for teams and institutions
FusionLabs can provide practitioner access, private cohorts, tailored team delivery, facilitated workshops, and institutional versions aligned with your governance structure, policies, workflows, and risk environment.
Request access
Build practical research-security capability
Develop the governance, due-diligence, risk-assessment, mitigation, escalation, and workflow capabilities needed to implement research security in practice.