Swiss Universities Defend Against Iran-Related Research Allegations

Multiple Switzerland-based universities defended their research security practices this week after United Against Nuclear Iran said the Iranian military is exploiting partnerships between Iranian universities and the Swiss learning institutions to obtain sensitive research and technology (see 2405100023).

In its report, the nonprofit UANI said Lund University maintains a joint master’s program with the University of Tehran, but a spokesperson for Lund said it "has no collaboration with [Iran] or any other Iranian university." The spokesperson said past collaboration with Iran was part of an EU-funded “project” with Iranian universities “several years ago." That project “was initiated at a time when the EU encouraged European universities to start collaboration with Iran,” the spokesperson said in a May 13 email.

Lund received “in total only one student from Iran within the framework of this collaboration,” the person said. The agreement lasted five years and ended in 2021. “Today Lund University does not have any cooperation with any Iranian university.”

The spokesperson said Lund has reached out to UANI with this information, and the organization has “updated its records accordingly to reflect the clarifications.”

A spokesperson for Switzerland-based Luleå University of Technology, which UANI accused of partnering with Iran's Guilan University, said UANI's allegations are "not correct. We have no agreement with University of Guilan. We have search[ed] in our archives and none of the faculties have any knowledge of collaborations with them."

The spokesperson said Lulea University of Technology does have an agreement with "two institutions at the University of Tehran," and that agreement runs from 2020-2026. But the college hasn't "activated the agreement (no activites have been carried out) and we will not do so either," the spokesperson wrote in an email. "Therefore we have no collaboration with them either."

UANI also said Switzerland-based Uppsala University has a partnership with Iran-based Golestan University. An Uppsala spokesperson said the university "has a very small number" of memorandums of understanding "with other universities in Iran. But none of these [are] where sensitive information can be exchanged between Uppsala University and the university that the MoU refers to," the spokesperson said in an email.