University of Calgary receives substantial funding from Department of National Defence

The University of Calgary Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies and The School of Public Policy have received substantial funding from the Department of National Defence. The Canadian Network on Information and Security (CANIS) project will be co-led by Dr. Erin Gibbs Van Brunschot, PhD, from the Centre for Military, Security and Strategic Studies and Dr. Jean-Christophe Boucher, PhD, from the School of Public Policy.

The CANIS project is funded through the Department of National Defence’s Mobilizing Insights in Defence and Security program (MINDS) as part of their Collaborative Network initiative. MINDS networks, like CANIS, are established to increase and diversify research on defence and security issues in Canada, as well as strengthen the defence team’s policy and decision-making by challenging assumptions. These networks bring together multi-disciplinary and diverse groups of experts from across Canada and the world to address key defence policy challenges.

Over a three-year period, the CANIS project will examine the impact of the domestic and international information environments on Canadian national defence and security through four nodes: political/military, cognitive/behavioural, technological, and legal/ethical. Each node will be supported by a research lead and team. In addition, the network will hire postdoctoral scholars who will develop their expertise in the field and provide scientific support to the project.

Throughout the duration of the project, there will be multiple occasions for young and emerging scholars to attend conferences, participate in summer schools and other events where they will be offered an opportunity to meet with relevant members of the defence and security community and publish work related to information and security.

According to Boucher, “CANIS endeavours to address security challenges within the information environment and will contribute to practical applications to counter nefarious use of information by a range of actors, as well as identify opportunities to better address the domestic defence/security information space.”