OPINION: Higher education innovation under siege

Yahoo

08-04-2025

Data is the new currency – all kinds of data. Canada's research institutions and innovation-driven enterprises hold and create some important data – sensitive research data. But higher education (HE) institutions are particularly vulnerable to cyberthreats. This is because they are essentially open ecosystems with movement and collaboration amongst and between students, professors and researchers at other HE institutions, governments and the private sector.
They are targets of state-sponsored espionage and sophisticated ransomware attacks. The risks to sensitive research data and Canadian intellectual property (IP) have never been greater. And yet, the current state of research data management (RDM) practices remains fragmented, exposing institutions to significant security risks.
A recent survey conducted by a respected Canadian U15 university (not to be named as this is not unique to this institution) showed an alarming majority of principal investigators relying on insecure methods to control sensitive research data such as student laptops, lab servers, external and USB drives.
While convenient, these ad-hoc solutions are rarely compliant with data security and privacy regulations. The use of commercial cloud storage services without institutional oversight can also create vulnerabilities that can lead to data breaches, unauthorized access and the loss of valuable research.
These are simply unacceptable and insecure practices to manage any research data of importance.
Another complication is the fact that research information security is evolving rapidly in higher education due to increasing regulatory requirements and funding agency mandates. Even when university IT departments provide secure repositories, they are often limited in their ability to facilitate external collaborations.
Research is inherently global, requiring data sharing across institutions, countries and jurisdictions. The lack of standardized, scalable and regulatory-compliant RDM solutions forces researchers to work around institutional limitations, further increasing security risks.
This shift is fundamentally changing how IT organizations are responding to support researchers.
They are now involved in more conversations regarding:
What is the nature of the research, the data collected, its source, and how is it to be used or shared?
What regulatory requirements researchers have to comply with?
What must IT do to support researchers?
What new service offerings need to be incorporated into their offerings?
What roles can vendors and solution providers play to support these changes?
The regulatory landscape governing research data security is complex and continuously evolving. Higher education institutions must navigate an array of jurisdictional standards.
Some of the more recognizable include:
HIPAA (Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act, U.S.): Governing the protection of healthcare-related research data.
PHIPA (Personal Health Information Protection Act, Canada): Similar to HIPAA, but specific to Ontario.
PIPEDA (Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, Canada): Governing the use and disclosure of personal data across all sectors
GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation, EU): Governing the protection of personal data for EU citizens, which affects international research collaborations.
NIST 800-171 (U.S.): Recently enforced for all federally funded research dealing with controlled unclassified information (CUI), significantly impacting researchers with U.S. funding.
With institutions already facing resource constraints, IT departments struggle to track and enforce compliance with these diverse regulations. Moreover, different research domains have unique data handling requirements – biomedical research, social sciences, engineering and AI each generate distinct data sets with varying sensitivity levels and access control needs and collaboration requirements.
Given these complexities, expecting university IT to provide a one-size-fits-all solution is unrealistic.
We believe the solution to these challenges lies in purpose-built, state-of-the-art SaaS platforms that prioritize cybersecurity, regulatory compliance and researcher-friendly usability and collaboration.
myLaminin is at the forefront of this movement, offering a secure RDM platform specifically designed with and for principal investigators (PIs) to meet the needs of modern research. Some notable platform highlights include:
Robust team and agreement management: An ability to seamlessly collaborate with global team members while maintaining data sovereignty and integrity and integrated eSignature for IP, Data-Sharing, Publication, or Non-Disclosure agreement management.
End-to-end encryption and role-based access control: Sensitive research data must be encrypted both in transit and at rest. myLaminin utilizes advanced encryption protocols and implements zero trust architecture (ZTA) to ensure that only authorized individuals can access research data.
Cross-jurisdictional compliance and automated governance: myLaminin is built to align with PIPEDA, GDPR, HIPAA, PHIPA, and NIST 800-171, among other frameworks. By integrating automated compliance tracking and policy enforcement, our platform reduces the regulatory burden on IT departments and researchers.
Robust data repository management: A flexible research data repository with upload, download, analytical and collaborative document editing capabilities supporting both cloud and on-prem storage.
Blockchain for data integrity and provenance: Blockchain technology enables immutable records of research data transactions, ensuring transparency, reproducibility and auditability. This is crucial to maintaining the credibility of research findings in journal articles and preventing data manipulation or theft.
AI-powered compliance tracking and cloud infrastructure: Our compliance tracking software monitors our adherence to various security frameworks and delivers real-time notifications to assist institutions in staying ahead of regulatory changes.
Seamless global collaboration without compromising security: myLaminin's platform enables cross-institutional and international collaborations while ensuring that sensitive research data remains secure. By enabling controlled, traceable access to data across jurisdictions, we help researchers work seamlessly without violating data sovereignty.
Robust data collection (eSurvey) and research ethics board (REB) modules: Survey capability for both classical and longitudinal data collection supporting PHI data, medical ontologies, different time zones and participant consent forms. And an REB module that is flexible and allows for institutional forms and workflows.
Cybersecurity is not just a technical challenge; it is a critical enabler of responsible research, innovation and global competitiveness. Higher education institutions must adopt modern, scalable solutions to protect their researchers, funding and intellectual property.
At myLaminin, we believe that secure, compliant, scalable and accessible RDM is fundamental to sustaining Canada's leadership in innovation. We leverage emerging technologies like blockchain to offer a next-generation RDM platform that not only safeguards sensitive research but also enhances collaboration in an increasingly complex regulatory environment.
The future of Canadian research depends on adopting advanced cybersecurity measures and purpose-built RDM solutions. With myLaminin, institutions can confidently transition from the practices of the early 2000s to ensure their research activities are secure, ethical and globally impactful.
Ash Bassili is the CEO of myLaminin and is focused on supporting researchers to accelerate innovation. Find out more: https://www.mylaminin.net
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