Contact: James Carskadon

STARKVILLE, Miss.—Mississippi State University is taking on a leadership role in a national effort to enhance U.S. research security.

MSU is part of a National Science Foundation-funded and University of Washington-led coalition establishing the Safeguarding the Entire Community of the U.S. Research Ecosystem (SECURE) Center. The center, which is receiving $67 million from the NSF over five years, will enable a national platform for protecting U.S. research investments, especially research that has national security implications.

Narcisa Pricope, MSU associate vice president for research, will serve as the principal investigator for the university’s portion of the grant. MSU, along with the Hoover Institute and University of Michigan, is co-leading the Functional Expert Area, focused on a wide range of security concerns such as high-risk research areas, threat types, geopolitical analysis and international relations. MSU is one of nine institutions of higher education nationwide supporting the effort.

“Every day, institutions like MSU are conducting research that is critical to our shared national security, while also forging international connections that broaden our expertise and enhance our capabilities,” Pricope said. “As universities, we must adapt our practices to a constantly changing geopolitical environment so that we can both grow global connections and protect U.S. research investments. I am proud that MSU will play a key role in developing the solutions that will foster continued research security and integrity.”

The MSU team will closely examine several technology areas that have been identified as high risk by the NSF’s Directorate for Technology, Innovation and Partnerships and their research security implications. Those areas include advanced manufacturing and materials, artificial intelligence and biotechnology, communications and cyberinfrastructure, disaster risk and resilience, energy technology, quantum information science and semiconductors/microelectronics.

“NSF is committed to principled international collaboration. At the same time, we must address threats to the research enterprise,” said NSF Director Sethuraman Panchanathan in announcing the funding. “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.”

In addition to Pricope, MSU Research Security Officer Chris Jenkins and Department of Geosciences Professor Andrew Mercer will support the new SECURE Center. MSU’s funding from the project also will support a graduate student to help develop dashboards and visualizations for broader use by the national research community.

For more information on the SECURE Center, visit https://new.nsf.gov/news/nsf-backed-secure-center-will-support-research.

Mississippi State University is taking care of what matters. Learn more at www.msstate.edu.