Five UK universities are behind a new centre for the development and use of economic and social science research to understand, mitigate and counter security threats. The Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) brings together researchers at the universities of Birmingham, Cranfield, Lancaster, Portsmouth (pictured) and the West of England (UWE Bristol). Their aim; a national hub for research and training, for understanding of contemporary threats.
Launched on October 1, the Centre was commissioned by and will be administered by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) that funds institutions. CREST is funded for three years with £4.35m from the UK security and intelligence agencies and a further £2.2m invested by the founding five unis.
Director of CREST Professor Paul Taylor, from Lancaster, said: “Bringing together the UK’s top economic, behavioural and social scientists with partners in industry and government will provide unprecedented opportunities to develop our understanding of security threats and how best to mitigate them. Today’s threats are challenging and diverse. The ambitious and innovative activities of CREST over the coming years will meet these challenges.”
The universities say that CREST will stimulate public and professional debate, connect disciplinary communities, inform security policy and practice, and provide training to research leaders of the future. Portsmouth will lead research on eliciting information, examining how best to promote accurate and complete recall. Prof Lorraine Hope from the University’s Department of Psychology said: “We have a successful track history of innovative and high impact research in this are. This is an excellent opportunity to develop and apply effective science-based interviewing techniques for use in security contexts.”
Cranfield will lead research on protective security and risk assessment. Dr Debi Ashenden, Head of the Centre for Cyber Security and Information Systems at Cranfield said: “By focusing on these areas, we will look to improve our understanding of the security risks we face and how we make decisions about mitigating those risks. It is very exciting to be working with such a unique mix of behavioural and social scientists on such a broad spectrum of security challenges.”
Lancaster will lead the research on ideas, beliefs and values in social contexts, examining how extremist ideologies are transmitted and countered. UWE Bristol will cover online behaviour – the role of the internet in threat initiation, organisation and mitigation
Other topics are ‘actors and narratives’, and beliefs and values in social contexts. The project will initially fund 13 PhD students working across all five universities.
