Through an IRGC-linked research conference, Iranian hardliners are attempting to infiltrate the UK through university academics.

The International Conference of Research in Europe (ICRE), an annual event that began last year has drawn over 300 participants including UK professors from Cambridge, Birmingham and Glasgow Caledonian University.

The ICRE conference director Mohammad Hussain Ataee Dolatabadi is affiliated with the highest security intelligence circles of the regime. In January 2023, Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei praised Dolatabadi, a British citizen for organizing ICRE and Abadi has boasted to IRGC-affiliated sources about the conference and its global academic attendees, who can bolster the regime with critical information in the field of science and technologies.

However, after it was revealed in the British media that Dolatabadi has hosted senior IRGC commanders through his position as head of the ‘Islamic Students Association of Britain’ and ‘Union for Islamic Students Association of Europe’, organizers tried to erase evidence of the conference including its website.

ICRE's formal association with these two student associations, recently exposed for online meetings with senior IRGC officials, indicate deep connections between the conference and the regime's highest security-intelligence circles.

Mohammad Marandi, an adviser to the regime's nuclear negotiating team, is part of ICRE's Scientific Committee and Hadi Larijani, with close ties to the regime's leadership, also played a key role in organizing the conferences.

As the IRGC's targeting of the UK increases, so do calls for immediate action. Critics are demanding that the government immediately proscribe the IRGC as well as investigate the presence and citizenship of Iranian regime elites and oligarchs within the UK.