July 23, 2026 |

The Department of War today announced the publication of the Fiscal Year (FY) 2025 update to the list of foreign institutions engaging in problematic activities, as required by Section 1286 of the FY19 National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA).

This update is a vital component of the Department's ongoing mission to highlight and counter unauthorized technology transfer to foreign countries of concern. The FY25 list formally identifies 130 academic and research institutions located in China, Russia and Iran. These institutions have been confirmed to engage in activities that increase the likelihood of U.S. government-funded research and development efforts being misappropriated. Such misappropriation enables adversarial government interference that directly threatens America's national security and scientific integrity.

"The Department of War is strengthening its commitment to protect taxpayer-funded research and preserving the integrity of the American scientific enterprise," said Emil Michael, Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering.

The Department advises strict caution for domestic researchers, academic institutions and industry partners when considering collaboration, funding or data-sharing engagements with any institution named on this list. This aligns with recent directives from Under Secretary Michael establishing stricter requirements to protect fundamental research from malign foreign influence and intellectual property theft.

The Department will continue to update the list at least once a year or as appropriate based on emerging intelligence and threat assessments. The FY25 Section 1286 list is available here.

New Pilot Survey Reveals Importance of Intellectual Property

New survey results indicate that trademarks and trade secrets are the most important forms of intellectual property (IP) protection according to most businesses, followed by copyrights and patents.

The findings shed light on the importance businesses place on various types of IP protection for their companies. Specifically, during 2008, they reported whether utility patents, design patents, trademarks, copyrights, trade secrets and mask works--copyright protection for semiconductor products--were "very important," "somewhat important," or "not important."

IP protections are granted to the owners of a variety of intangible assets, such as discoveries and inventions; musical, literary and artistic works; and symbols, names, images and designs used in commerce.

The National Science Foundation (NSF) and the U.S. Census Bureau co-sponsored this data collection as part of a revamped and expanded Business R&D and Innovation Survey (BRDIS). The BRDIS collects information from a nationally representative sample of about 40,000 companies, including companies in both manufacturing and nonmanufacturing industries.

Overall, 15 percent of all businesses reported trademarks as either very important or somewhat important to their business in 2008; that is 6 percent said trademarks were very important, while 9 percent said they were somewhat important.

Fourteen percent of surveyed businesses reported trade secrets as very important or somewhat important at 6 percent and 8 percent respectively.

But, because each form of intellectual property protection is specialized, the percentages are not additive across types. A trade secret, for example, provides economic benefit by keeping information from being publicly known, whereas a trademark protects economic value through name or brand recognition. Therefore, a single firm could identify both of these forms as important to its business.

"Much of today's business derives its competitive advantage from the ability to protect and exploit exclusive rights over investments in intellectual property," said John Jankowski, lead author of the report in NSF's National Center for Science and Engineering Statistics. "Hence, IP protection is a persistent and recurrent concern of businesses."

Meanwhile, 12 percent of U.S.-located businesses identified copyrights as important, and businesses indicated that design patents and utility patents are important forms of IP protection, at 5 percent and 4 percent respectively.

In another finding, mask works, which provide extremely focused copyright protection for semiconductor products, were reported as very or somewhat important by 2 percent of all businesses.

-NSF-