Australia’s taxpayer-funded university research sector has long been targeted by authoritarian regimes resulting in the transfer of sensitive research, with a new government report specifically identifying the Chinese regime as the largest, but not the only, culprit of foreign interference. In the report, the Parliamentary Joint Committee on Intelligence and Security (PJCIS) found several instances where staff and students were subject to sustained campaigns of intimidation, harassment, and censorship when they were outspoken on campus. “This resulted in the transfer of sensitive research to authoritarian regimes and their militaries and threats to the safety of domestic and international students,” Committee Chair Sen. James Paterson said. The committee presented 27 unanimous and bipartisan recommendations to address the threats posed by foreign interference on the nation’s critical research institutions. Paterson wrote in News Corp’s The Australian that universities needed to face the “ugly reality” that many academics and students, both domestic and international, …