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Dept. of Homeland Security S&T Programs
>From another list server I belong to.
----------------
FYI
The American Institute of Physics Bulletin of Science
Policy News
Number 127: October 1, 2003
Looking Ahead: Dept. of Homeland Security S&T Programs
At a briefing yesterday, Charles E. McQueary, Under
Secretary for Science and Technology at the Department
of Homeland Security, offered his insights on the
direction which the Science and Technology Directorate
will take in the coming year. McQueary clearly has
his hands full as he works to fully staff his
directorate and meet wide ranging challenges to
America's security.
The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has five
directorates: Border and Transportation Security,
Emergency Preparedness and Response, Information
Analysis and Infrastructure Protection, Management,
and Science and Technology. DHS consolidated many
government functions and employees, and now has about
180,000 employees. The Science and Technology
Directorate began with six employees, and has since
grown to 75 employees, many with advanced scientific
degrees. Under the DHS authorization, the
Directorate will have 180 employees, which McQueary
hopes to have in place a year from now. There will
also be a "couple of hundred" support contractors.
McQueary characterized the operation, now in its sixth
month, as a work in progress. Congress recently
completed work on the FY 2004 DHS appropriations bill
with a large increase for the Science and Technology
Directorate; see
http://www.aip.org/enews/fyi/2003/126.html
McQueary described his Directorate's primary function
as a supplier of innovative and effective technology
to the other DHS directorates. Two or three people
from each of the other four directorates work directly
with McQueary's Directorate to ensure close alignment
of missions. Research areas include radiological and
nuclear materials, biological agents, high explosives,
systems engineering, and cyber security. McQueary
identified systems engineering as "the key issue," as
DHS grapples with integrating federal resources to
protect a very wide range of possible targets. Also
important, he said, was the development of
countermeasures standards so that local first
responders can ensure that they are purchasing the
right equipment.
Protecting America will require the mobilization of
the nation's best scientists, McQueary said. Toward
this end, the Directorate has established a university
program that has offered 101 scholarships and
fellowships. The Directorate is also in the process
of selecting Centers of Excellence at colleges and
universities. Seventy-two white papers were submitted
from candidate institutions, which were narrowed to
twelve semi-finalists. The first center is to be
selected this year. The DHS website states that nine
other centers may be named by the end of next year.
McQueary noted that selecting these Centers is a
complex undertaking, and that the Directorate will be
adding one center at a time.
In addition, a Homeland Security Advanced Research
Projects Agency, resembling DARPA, has been
established to engage private interests. A bidder's
conference about an announcement for chemical and
biological sensors was held in a large hotel ballroom
in Washington this week, and McQueary said that it was
standing-room-only. There is, he said, a lot of
interest in such work.
The Directorate is also engaging both large and small
national laboratories. McQueary praised lawmakers for
being foresighted in including legislative language in
the DHS act covering the national laboratories.
McQueary has been visiting laboratories to assess the
roles that they could play in meeting his
Directorate's needs, and are on equal footing in the
DHS selection process, he said. McQueary is seeking
detailees from the laboratories to work in the
Directorate. He spoke of the importance of sound
technology transfer mechanisms at the labs, and said,
in addition, that legislation may be needed to ensure
that technology transfer is fully utilized by
universities and private businesses.
When asked about the nature of the work to be
supported by the Directorate, McQueary said that a
series of scientific "hits" will be needed early on to
demonstrate the relevance of science and technology to
homeland security. This year, he expects that 10-15%
of the research the Directorate supports will be on
"forward-looking research," as opposed to the
application of technology, and that this percentage
will increase in the future.
McQueary expects to designate an existing
Federally-funded Research and Development Center to
assist his Directorate, but said that not very much
has been done so far in this regard. Further
information about DHS and its programs can be found at
www.dhs.gov
Attending this briefing was Rep. Rush Holt (D-NJ), who
asked a series of questions to McQueary about how the
Directorate would operate, stressing the need for
strong coordination. "We have a lot riding on you,"
Holt said.
###############
Richard M. Jones
Media and Government Relations Division
The American Institute of Physics
fyi@aip.org http://www.aip.org/gov
(301) 209-3094
##END##########
=====
"Self-criticism is the secret weapon of democracy, and candor and confession are good for the public soul."
Adlai Stevenson
-- John
John Jacobus, MS
Certified Health Physicist
e-mail: crispy_bird@yahoo.com
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