Federal agents are warning leaders at some of the top universities in New England region—such as MIT, Boston College, and the University of Massachusetts—to be on the lookout for foreign spies or potential terrorists trying to steal their research, the head of the FBI’s Boston office said Monday.

Agents plan to visit many more New England colleges in the coming months and are offering to provide briefings about what they call “espionage indicators” to faculty, students, or security staff as part of a national outreach to college campuses.

“What we’re most concerned about are those things that are not classified being developed by MIT, Worcester Polytech, and other universities,” said Warren T Bamford, special agent in-charge of the FBI’s Boston office. He said colleges are vulnerable to those looking to exploit that information and use it against the US.

The FBI’s website says universities should consider the possibility of foreign spies posing as international students or visitors and terrorists studying advanced technologies and scientific breakthroughs on campus, as well as violent extremists and computer hackers.

“We don’t walk in with the idea we’re are going to stop the free flow of information,” Bamford said.

“The academic community is designed to be open, and we just have to make them aware,” he said. “There are people who would be willing to establish relationships to take secrets.”

Dennis D Berkey, president of Worcester Polytechnic Institute, said he and several other university administrators met Bamford about two weeks ago and welcomed the advice about protecting their unpublished research. For example, researchers shouldn’t leave laptops unprotected in a hotel room in a foreign country, where they could be stolen. Berkey said he puts his own laptop in the hotel safe.

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