UK-China Transparency's (UKCT) work on influence and engagement with China in British universities is closely linked to our work on academic repression in the sector, and UKCT's work on university collaboration in science and technology.
The focus here, however, is on partnerships in the humanities and the activities of Chinese ‘think tanks’ in the UK, the relationship between Chinese diplomats and university staff as well as Chinese student groups, Chinese government programmes that take place within British universities, and how these issues are governed by university executives.
UKCT launched in 2023 with a report on Confucius Institutes, querying the discriminatory selection of staff from China, their employment status, and formal obligations laid out in Chinese-language paperwork.
Later that year we produced further research on the China Scholarship Council (CSC), whereby at least 650 and probably around 1000 Chinese students enjoy sponsored study in the UK every year. UKCT again queried the discriminatory selection process – UK universities appeared to be waiving the fees of people subjected to vetting and discrimination that would be illegal in the UK. There were additional questions about Chinese government contracts signed by the scholars.
In March 2024, we submitted information to the English universities regulator (the Office for Students, OfS) about the schemes. The same month, guidance produced by the OfS suggested it saw the two schemes as incompatible with the Higher Education (Freedom of Speech) Act. As of early 2026, universities were reportedly preparing legal challenges against the OfS’s enforcement.
We continue to document this sage in our online blog and are determined to shine a light on the way these schemes are administered by British universities.
We are committed to closing the ‘information gap’ between British universities and their Chinese partners, and highlighting cases where that gap is exploited to the detriment of good governance.
For example, regarding the CSC scheme, UKCT has received internal documentation from a British university suggesting that it had never had sight of contracts signed by CSC scholars awarded a place at the university – and that the CSC itself was ignoring requests for access to these contracts.
Similarly, there is debate about Chinese Students and Scholars Associations (CSSAs), which often bill themselves as independent student societies, but in Mandarin describe themselves as branches of a United Front Work Department body within the Chinese embassy.
UKCT is committed to shining a light on China-connected funding of China studies in the UK.
In the past, these have included a large endowment to Cambridge allegedly from the family of a senior Chinese Communist Party (CCP) leader, which was used for a professorship for an academic favoured by the CCP; and a large endowment from a Hong Kong-based tycoon to create the Lau China Centre at King’s College London.
UKCT is analysing the significance of the presence of CCP members in British universities. There are roughly 5000 Chinese nationals working for British universities, some in China. If the rate of CCP membership is the same amongst this number as in the Chinese population as a whole (it is likely to be higher), then there are probably at least several hundred CCP members working for British universities.
We are actively raising awareness of the consequences of this for normal governance procedures, for example, regarding registers of interests.
