As universities navigate their dual roles as producers of
tightly regulated research and development on the one hand and hubs of global
knowledge exchange on the other, university actors are increasingly prone to
violations of export controls: legal restrictions on the export of goods and
services to foreign entities. This article develops a typology of export
control violations at universities (ECVUs), identifying seven mechanisms
through which export-controlled technologies held at universities may be
illicitly transferred in the course of regular university business:
publications, teaching, sales, research partnerships, employment, diversion, and
theft. Through a case study of a series of ECVUs that occurred at a physics
laboratory at an American university in 2008, we demonstrate the analytical
utility of our typology in both in grouping like cases and differentiating
unlike cases. This article offers practical guidance for university actors and
institutions in identifying high-risk activities for ECVUs, and positions
institutes of higher education as important stakeholders in national export
control regimes.