The Science and Technology branch of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) plans to create a new university-based center of excellence devoted research to enhance the resiliency of the nation’s critical infrastructure.
The agency plans to award up to $20 million over five years for a center lead and a center partner, which would be in support of the lead, to create the Critical Infrastructure Resilience Center of Excellence, according to DHS. The center will work with businesses and public entities that own and operate assets and systems that make up the nation’s critical infrastructure.
The center will focus on the interdependency of infrastructure security, providing owners and operators, the federal government and state governments a better understanding of the complexities of risk management for critical infrastructures. Research will be focused around catastrophic disruptions, testing of solutions for infrastructures, how infrastructures may evolve, and how resilience may be built into future structures.
The S&T Directorate currently has 12 centers of excellence across the country focused on various areas such as maritime security, transportation security, visualization and data analytics, and zoonotic and animal disease defense. The centers work with DHS component agencies to research, develop and transition mission-relevant science and technology to an operational environment, and to educate the next-generation of homeland security technical experts.