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Canadian and other Western academics are helping Iran and China develop drone technology. Canadian academics have been collaborating with Iranian universities on drone technology and other research that could benefit Tehran’s armed forces and that country’s allies. - A 2023 research paper on drone propulsion technology includes 3 researchers from the University of Tehran, one from Iran’s Persian Gulf University and one academic from the University of Windsor. - A 2022 paper on improving obstacle detection for microaerial vehicles (MAVs) included a Chinese researcher, an Iranian from K.N. Toosi University of Technology and an academic from Waterloo. - A 2020 research paper on enhancing flight performance for “aerial robots” included a researcher at York University as well as an academic with the department of aerospace engineering at Iran’s top-rated Sharif University of Technology. Western academics often fail to understand that hostile countries like Iran will use university collaboration as a means to give them military advantage. Chinese and Iranian scientists try to disguise the scientific research as benign when it is in fact dual use. Canadian universities have for years collaborated with a top Chinese army scientific institution on hundreds of advanced-technology research projects, generating knowledge that could help drive China’s defence sector in high-tech industries. Researchers at 50 Canadian universities, including the University of Waterloo, University of Toronto, University of British Columbia and McGill University, conducted and published joint scientific papers from 2005 to 2022 with scientists connected to China’s military, according to research provided by U.S. strategic intelligence company Strider Technologies Inc. Strider compiled the data and found that in the last 5 years of the period they studied, academics at 10 of Canada’s leading universities published more than 240 joint papers on topics including quantum cryptography, photonics and space science with Chinese military scientists at the National University of Defence Technology (NUDT). Some of the NUDT researchers were experts in missile performance and guidance systems, mobile robotics and automated surveillance. Academics in USA, Britain and Australia have also collaborated on drone technology with Iran’s Sharif University, which is known to have close ties to the country’s military. The research was published in 2023 by the Institute of Electrical Engineers and examined the use of drones in wireless networks and as communications hubs. The British government has announced it is investigating allegations that a number of universities had collaborated with Iranian academics on UAVs.