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Duke University and UNC-Chapel Hill are among 30 universities under intense federal scrutiny for potentially problematic foreign research ties.
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The Defense Department announced Monday it is asking 30 universities to “initiate immediate and comprehensive reviews of their academic, financial and research collaborations with foreign entities of concern.” The department later provided The News & Observer with a list of the schools in question, which included Duke and UNC.
The stakes for these universities are high, and the turnaround time is tight.
If universities do not complete the audits of foreign collaborations as instructed, they may lose eligibility for future federal research funding, according to the department. They are required to “assess the exposure of sensitive or export-controlled research and implement strict mitigation plans, including the termination of problematic partnerships.”
This information is due Aug. 31 — giving universities just 14 days between the public announcement and the deadline.
A list of the 130 foreign entities that the Defense Department considers a threat to national security is available online. It includes research and educational entities from China, Iran and Russia. The Pentagon also instructs universities to look for “organizations associated with rebranded Confucius Institutes,” an educational and promotional organization for the Chinese government.
The goal of the audits is to protect university research from “unauthorized technology transfer, intellectual property theft and adversarial exploitation,” the department said. It’s pursuing this effort alongside some congressional committees, including the House and Senate armed services committees, the House and Senate appropriations committees, and the House Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party.
The N&O contacted Duke and UNC for comment but did not receive a response from either in time for publication.
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The demand for audits comes at a time when relations with the Pentagon are mixed at UNC.
On one hand, UNC was recently selected to host a fellowship program for senior military officers, replacing a list of elite institutions once home to the fellowship — which Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth called “woke breeding grounds of toxic indoctrination.”
Meanwhile, Defense Department funding fell 53% at UNC-Chapel Hill between the 2024 and 2026 fiscal years, The N&O previously reported. Duke refused to answer questions about its levels of federal research funding.
The Trump administration has focused on foreign intervention in higher education. A data visualization platform launched in February by the Department of Education shows that Duke has received $93 million in Chinese funding since 1986. For UNC, that number is $2.4 million.
The full list of schools instructed to conduct an audit is below. Other schools in the Southeast include Emory University, the University of South Carolina and Virginia Tech.
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This story was originally published August 18, 2026 at 3:23 PM.