UW awarded $50M to lead U.S. research security center

The University of Washington will receive $50 million over five years from the NSF to lead the national Safeguarding the Entire Community of the U.S. Research Ecosystem (SECURE) Center. An additional $17 million over five years has been awarded to Texas A&M University to launch a companion SECURE Analytics program. Together, this $67 million investment in the SECURE program will empower the research community to make security-informed decisions that protect and enhance the immense value of its funded work.

The SECURE Center will establish a national infrastructure and collaborative partnership of academic institutions, nonprofits and businesses, engaging them in the design, development and delivery of capabilities and information that will be used to safeguard the U.S. research investment.

Mark Haselkorn, professor in the Department of Human Centered Design & Engineering and director of the College of Engineering's Center on Collaborative Systems for Security, Safety, and Resilience (CoSSaR), will be director and principal investigator of the SECURE Center. Other UW personnel with lead roles in SECURE are Lynette Arias (co-director), Sonia Savelli (design lead and co-principal investigator), Associate Professor David Ribes (value areas lead) and Brie Yost (operations manager).

Haselkorn brings decades of experience co-designing complex virtual environments that facilitate collaboration. He has worked with professionals from a wide range of entities (federal, defense, state, county, city, tribal, international, public and private) to align strategies, processes and technology in shared systems for security, safety and resilience.

"As we continue investing big in groundbreaking research conducted in Washington state and all across the country, it's so important that we ensure the integrity of research and protect it from foreign interference—and I am thrilled that the University of Washington will lead these efforts with a new center," said Senator Patty Murray (D-WA). "This federal funding will provide UW with critical resources to establish a new center to identify threats, make risk-informed decisions, and work with other universities across the U.S. to safeguard domestic research."

In addition to the national center at UW, five regional centers will guide and empower research stakeholders in the development, adoption and use of the SECURE Shared Virtual Environment: SECURE Northeast led by Northeastern University, SECURE Southeast led by Emory University, SECURE Midwest led by the University of Missouri, SECURE Southwest led by the University of Texas San Antonio and Texas A&M University, and SECURE West led by the UW. Regional development of the shared virtual environment will not only create and deliver enhanced capabilities for research security, but will also be a community-building activity that increases trust, cohesion and collaboration.

"Community-centered solutions are essential not only to the design of enhanced research security capabilities, but also to their adoption and use," said Haselkorn. "Through SECURE, we will work to ensure the community of researchers and research administrators feel ownership of these enhancements and assure that they meet their needs and work in their environments."

In addition to the regional center leads, the University of Michigan, Mississippi State University and Stanford University's Hoover Institution will lead essential work in "expert areas" such as high-risk research, threat types and geopolitical analysis. The College of Charleston and MindCette will join Michigan and the UW in leading "value areas" such as burden reduction, equitable access, and balancing collaboration and protection.

"NSF is committed to principled international collaboration. At the same time, we must address threats to the research enterprise," said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan. "The SECURE Center is how we bring the research community together to identify risks, share information and leverage national expertise on research security to develop solutions that protect essential research being done at institutions across the nation. This is a community-focused platform, and the research community will be the drivers of how SECURE Center tools and services are designed, used and improved upon."

The $67 million SECURE funding announced Wednesday follows the CHIPS and Science Act of 2022, which authorized $280 billion to boost and protect U.S. research and manufacturing. NSF funds approximately $10 billion of 2024 U.S. research and is a strong partner in the cooperative agreements that establish SECURE.

"Funding agencies, research administrators, and researchers are all key stakeholders in the national research community," said Haselkorn. "The SECURE Center will bring these diverse stakeholders together to identify and collaboratively address complex security issues."

View more information in the NSF press release: NSF-backed SECURE Center will support research security, international collaboration.

Provided by University of Washington