Social and Behavioral Sciences for National Security: Proceedings of a Summit

Review
Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 2017 May 24.

Excerpt

In the coming years, complex domestic and international environments and challenges to national security will continue. Intelligence analysts and the intelligence community will need access to the appropriate tools and developing knowledge about threats to national security in order to provide the best information to policy makers. Research and knowledge from the social and behavioral sciences (SBS) can help inform the work of intelligence analysis; however, in the past, bringing important findings from research to bear on the day-to-day work of intelligence analysis has been difficult.

In order to understand how knowledge from science can be directed and applied to help the intelligence community fulfill its critical responsibilities, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will undertake a 2-year survey of the social and behavioral sciences. To launch this discussion, a summit designed to highlight cutting-edge research and identify future directions for research in a few areas of the social and behavioral sciences was held in October 2016. This publication summarizes the presentations and discussions from the summit.

Publication types

  • Review

Grants and funding

This activity was supported by Contract No. 2014-14041100003-009 between the National Academy of Sciences and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. Any opinions, findings, conclusions, or recommendations expressed in this publication do not necessarily reflect the views of any organization or agency that provided support for the project.