While undergraduate students can benefit from a university’s homeland offering – which is often driven by the presence of a COE at the school – most often, it is graduate students who participate in COE research. By consequence, these students are becoming the kind of experts homeland agencies need in-house to address their various challenges. This is what many COE leaders called a “win-win-win” situation. Homeland agencies get access to tailored solutions; the Centers of Excellence receive work and research from intelligent students, which drive solutions; and the students themselves acquire the skill sets and experience needed to propel them into homeland security careers.

“In the long term, agencies really need staff that can answer their specific needs,” said Clark. “It gives graduate students real problems to deal with … There is just no substitute for having that kind of experience. Ten years from now, you’ll see these people. They’ll be in positions of power and making a difference.”

 

Open Source with a Confidential Option

The COE often develop solutions without the benefit of raw intelligence, collected data or other sensitive information. This is because universities generally do not have the infrastructure to handle sensitive information, researchers and students are not cleared to work with it, and in any case, the centers and universities themselves would be liable for how that information is used and disseminated. Given these challenges, much of the research done at the centers is based on open source information.

“The general rule of thumb is its all open source,” said Clark. “Even our customers are comfortable with that. Often our clients like the open source research because it gives [COE scholars] a distance and objective viewpoint on the problems they have to deal with. They are not invested in anyone’s predetermined solution.”

This is important for universities because all the research they produce must be publishable to the wider academic community. What is more, not all homeland challenges require security clearance. Sometimes solutions can be developed using proxy data as a substitute for sensitive intelligence. CREATE’s Assistant for Randomized Monitoring Over Routes (ARMOR) program, for example, was developed using open source data. Since then, however, the program has been further developed into a classified version for the TSA’s Federal Air Marshals.

That is not to say COE experts are forbidden from working with sensitive information. Rather, working closely with the end user, should it become paramount for a researcher to work with classified information, there are opportunities to gain security clearance, after which, work is done in secure research facilities. The option exists, but it is not always necessary. Yet, a recognition of this potential stumbling block shows the COE initiative’s continuing development and adjustment.

 

The Centers of the Future

America is working through difficult times. The national debt, weak markets, high unemployment and an ever-more competitive international environment mean tough choices about federal funding and who receives it. Last year, Congress cut DHS S&T funding by 54 percent – nearly $200 million. This was a massive cut, and it forces DHS to make difficult choices about where to spend the remaining funding.

And there will be future budget cuts for DHS and other agencies. Congress will look closely at things like research and development. Proving a return on investment (ROI) will be critical for the centers, and those that can show a real contribution to the homeland challenge – and the ability to transition research into useable tools and processes – will stand the best chance of retaining their funding.

This is a difficult position – the centers are helping security professionals and emergency responders, and they are readying the next generation of homeland leaders to meet and overcome tomorrow’s homeland security challenges. Reduced or absent funding puts this in jeopardy, and even as Congress makes the tough calls on where and how to spend American tax dollars, they would do well to closely consider not only the immediate ROI of homeland solutions for COE customers but also, the long-term benefits the centers offer through their instruction of students and ongoing work in the developing homeland security field.

“I think what we’re doing may elevate the stature of a true national and homeland security curriculum seen by the academic community to withstand academic rigor,” said Southers. “When we start talking about adaptive adversaries, decision analysis, risk management tools – these are all part of what we do and all things that are within academia. We must be seen as synonymous with homeland and national security and stop separating the academic component from the operational component.”

The Centers help make this happen.

In 2011’s Year in Homeland Security, this author wrote:

“It would seem that homeland security is in the midst of becoming a profession, though it may never stop the process of becoming. The cannon of homeland knowledge cannot be closed, as the threat and challenges are always in flux. Yet, the concept has certainly taken shape, in no small part guided by discussions and study of students, experts and professionals preparing for this ever-changing field.”

The value the centers offer goes beyond the delivery of tailored homeland security solutions. They are in fact integral to the ongoing development of homeland security as a profession and as an academic subject. Marrying these two offers advanced, multi-disciplinary forward-thinking homeland solutions – a robust network of students, experts, and practitioners all focused on a common goal of better protecting the United States, its citizens and its interests. The COE are investments in the future of American security, and the continued funding dedicated today will surely prove less costly than the immense and cascading costs that arise when Mother Nature and America’s enemies catch us unprepared.