Session Abstract

The Directorate of Social, Behavioral, and Economic Sciences (SBE) at the National Science Foundation is focused on human behavior and the actions of groups and organizations. SBE has begun an examination of cybersecurity issues (with a goal of advancing the underlying social science supporting cybersecurity solutions) and is interested in opening a dialogue with Internet2 participants about integrating technical and social science to understand and solve cybersecurity problems.


Cybersecurity is obviously not purely a technological problem. Problems of incentive alignment, efficient risk bearing, and interdependent security arise, which are studied by economists; federations evoke sociology; information overload and display techniques, as well as protecting against social engineering, combine psychology with cognitive science.


NSF's main focus is on advancing the underlying scientific bases of cybersecurity issues. A short presentation about SBE initiatives will be followed by an open discussion exploring opportunities for collaboration by Internet2 technical members with social scientists, the opportunity to integrate social science research into cybersecurity issues, and identifying truly transformative ideas supporting future research opportunities that meld disciplinary knowledge from multiple fields.


Note: Many SBE grant proposal deadlines occur shortly before the Internet2 Fall meetings. Please consider submitting funding proposals to existing SBE programs at http://1.usa.gov/NSFSBE.