The Department of Defense today announced $46.8 million in grants to 19 university-based faculty teams under its Minerva Research Initiative. These three- to five-year awards support basic research in social and behavioral sciences on topics relevant to U.S. national security.
"In a rapidly changing world, social science is essential for making sense of human behavior, guiding informed decisions, and understanding societal progress," said Dr. David Montgomery, director of social science in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering "We need to explore and better understand the complex social dynamics that shape our world and provide insights useful to policymakers and others concerned with the social context of security."
Through its network of faculty investigators, the Minerva Research Initiative builds strong connections to the social science community to help DoD better understand and prepare for future challenges, guided by priorities established in the National Defense Strategy.
R&E and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy selected 19 university awardees from over 150 applicants in eight categories, using merit-based metrics that evaluated proposals for their potential to make foundational contributions to basic social science, alignment with the National Defense Strategy, and potential impact.
The awarded projects include:
- Social Cohesion in Action: How Collectivists and Interdependent Communities React to Adverse Events
Topic Area: Societal Cohesion in Crisis
Principal Investigator: Delia Baldassarri, New York University
- How Is Organized Crime Organized? Understanding the Political Economy, Industrial Organization, and Recruitment Into Organized Crime in Colombia
Topic Area: Societal Cohesion in Crisis
Principal Investigator: Christopher Blattman, University of Chicago
- China's Rise and Societal Cohesion in the Indo-Pacific: Concepts, Measures, Implications
Topic Area: Societal Cohesion in Crisis
Principal Investigator: Allen Hicken, University of Michigan
- Mapping Societal Cohesion, Disinformation, and Adversary Influence Operations, and Group Formation in African Crisis Regions
Topic Area: Societal Cohesion in Crisis
Principal Investigator: Lewis Jacob, Washington State University
- Conflict Resilience Across Scales: Theory and Data to Evaluate Societal Resilience to Water and Climate Shock
Topic Area: Considering Societal Resilience at Multiple Scales
Principal Investigator: Kate Brauman, University of Alabama
- Modelling Scales of Societal Resilience to Concurrent Shocks in the Asia-Pacific Region
Topic Area: Considering Societal Resilience at Multiple Scales
Principal Investigator: Michael Frachetti, Washington University in St. Louis
- "Un"Resilience: Drawing Insights from Societal Collapse
Topic Area: Considering Societal Resilience at Multiple Scales
Principal Investigator: Jose Padilla, Old Dominion University
- Anticipating Coastal Population Mobility: Path to Maladaptation or Sociopolitical Stability
Topic Area: Sociotechnical Adaptation to Climate, Food, and Water Stress
Principal Investigator: Anamaria Bukvic, Virginia Technical University
- Modeling Climate-Induced Societal Adaptation and Population Displacement
Topic Area: Sociotechnical Adaptation to Climate, Food, and Water Stress
Principal Investigator: Erik Wibbels, University of Pennsylvania
- Harmonizing Research Into AI Futures and Governance
Topic Area: Social Impact of Technological Change
Principal Investigator: Nicholas Evans, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
- Machine-Moderated Moral Injury: Exploring the Double-Edged Sword of Algorithmic Decision-Making in National Security
Topic Area: Social Impact of Technological Change
Principal Investigator: Neil Shortland, University of Massachusetts, Lowell
- Randomized Controlled Trials to Examine the Impact of Generative AI
Topic Area: Social Impact of Technological Change
Principal Investigator: Alexander Volfovsky, Duke University
- The Language of Parasocial Influence and the Emergence of Extremism
Topic Area: Parasocial Relationships, Social Media, and Radicalization
Principal Investigator: Joshua Plotkin, University of Pennsylvania
- Beyond the Clock: Understanding Cross-Cultural Temporal Orientation of Military Officers
Topic Area: Temporal Orientation and Strategic Considerations
Principal Investigator: Erika Frydenlund, Old Dominion University
- TimeBase: Systematically Mapping and Modeling Temporal Differences in Strategic Thinking, Signaling, (Inter-) Acting between the U.S., Russia, and China, and How They Matter
Topic Area: Temporal Orientation and Strategic Considerations
Principal Investigator: Adam Stulberg, Georgia Institute of Technology
- Cooperation and Conflict Dynamics in Deterrence Networks
Topic Area: Evolving Contexts of Deterrence
Principal Investigator: Michael Gabbay, University of Washington
- Empirical Study of Deterrence in the Context of Great Power Competition
Topic Area: Evolving Contexts of Deterrence
Principal Investigator: Renard Sexton, Emory University
- Military Adaptation and War Termination
Topic Area: War Termination Processes and Prospects
Principal Investigator: Jacob Aronson, University of Maryland
- What Sustains and Ends Wars: Will to Fight to Secure Ontological Significance Versus Material Capacity to Pursue Power
Topic Area: War Termination Processes and Prospects
Principal Investigator: Scott Atran, University of Oxford
