The proposed planning activity seeks to undertake planning of the establishment of a new Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC) site at Georgetown University of the existing Security and Software Engineering Research I/UCRC. The center is currently comprised of Ball State University, Iowa State University, Virginia Tech, and industry and government partners in the field. The Georgetown University site intends to bring capabilities in real-time network security, security policy, and governance to the center. Initial research projects are anticipated to be in areas such as secure network interoperability; tailored trusted spaces for secure communications; social, behavioral, and economic impediments to inter-enterprise communication; and the social impact of inter-enterprise communication.
The planned site, in combination with the existing center plans to help build innovation capacity in security and software engineering through its work in network security and the inclusion of governance and policy in the security software engineering process. The outcomes from the center have the potential to broadly impact the public and private sectors through realization of more readily acceptable and usable security systems and technology. The site plans to have a significant impact on students through integration of center research concepts into the curriculum. Graduate students from the social, behavioral, and economic sciences, as well as law, business, government, and policy, are planned to be involved in the work, thus touching a demographic not typical of computer science and engineering.
The purpose of the I/UCRC Planning Grant was for Georgetown University to investigate becoming an I/UCRC Phase I site in the Security and Software Engineering Research Center (S2ERC). The primary use of the planning grant was to help Georgetown hold a planning meeting with the NSF, prospective affiliates, and other members of the S2ERC community. The mission of the S2ERC is to conduct a program of applied and basic research on software security, system security and software technology problems of interest to its members. The goal of this research is to enable security and software technology gains within member organizations. The particular focus of the Georgetown site includes cybersecurity and the technological, legal, economic, and business issues affecting computer and network security. Georgetown held the planning meeting. Georgetown signed seven affiliates and raised 50% more research dollars than the I/UCRC program requires for an I/UCRC Phase I Grant. Notably, all of the research dollars came from private industry. NSF awarded Georgetown an I/UCRC Phase I Grant in 2013. By encouraging industrial participation in research, the result of the Planning Grant activity will advance practical knowledge within the cybersecurity domain. As the result of the Planning Grant was a number of research projects funded by industry, the NSF has seen an approximate 16x multiplier on its investment in the Planning Grant. This leveraged investment will go towards investments in students, faculty, and researchers to the advancement of cybersecurity.
