UNC Ends Study Abroad Program in China

The University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill has ended a study abroad program with Fudan University in China “out of an abundance of caution” after the Department of Defense ordered the university to review relationships with foreign institutions that it says could be a threat to national security.

In a letter shared with The Daily Tarheel to Joseph S. Sewell, the DOD assistant secretary for science and technology, UNC Chancellor Lee Roberts said the institution reviewed the scope of its relationship with Fudan after the Shanghai-based institution was added to the department’s Section 1286 list of “foreign institutions engaging in problematic activities” at the end of July. 

“The identified relationship was a study-abroad program for undergraduate students and was unrelated to research activities, including sensitive research, Department of War-funded research or export-controlled research,” Roberts wrote. “Out of an abundance of caution, UNC decided on August 12, 2026 to cancel the study-abroad program with Fudan University.”

UNC students take courses taught in English at Fudan’s School of Social Development and Public Policy and its International Summer School. The partnership was first proposed in 2013 and renewed in 2022. A university spokesperson told The News & Observer that four UNC students currently studying at Fudan are not affected and will finish their semester abroad. 

UNC is among 30 institutions the DOD directed this month to audit their partnerships with foreign institutions. The agency gave each university until the end of the month to submit its findings and terminate any relationships found to be “problematic,” the department said. Any university that does not comply could lose federal research funding.

In the letter sent to Sewell, Roberts said UNC’s Research Security program had identified two unfunded research projects with two other Chinese partners: one between researchers at Harbin Institute of Technology and a faculty member at UNC’s Kenan-Flagler Business School and another between researchers at Shanghai Jiao Tong University and a faculty member in the School of Data Science and Society.

Roberts said both partnerships are in their final stages and “neither project has received or involves any federal funding, and neither overlaps with any federally sponsored research activities at the University.” 

“The faculty involved are committed solely to completing their publication work and have agreed to fully terminate these relationships upon doing so,” Roberts wrote.