In its first-ever departmentwide Innovation, Research and Development (IRD) Strategic Plan released this week, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) highlighted eight strategic priority research areas that DHS will foster over the next seven fiscal years – including AI and cybersecurity.
The first-of-its-kind plan serves as a blueprint for the department to keep pace with technology by leveraging research and development to address homeland security challenges, DHS said.
In 2022, DHS Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas tasked the agency’s Science and Technology Directorate with examining the department’s execution of research and development and creating a coordinated strategy focused on areas for long-term research.
“This visionary roadmap, informed by scientific efforts, will empower DHS and its components to reduce risks to the homeland through optimized innovation, research, and development investments,” Dimitri Kusnezov, DHS under secretary for science and technology, said in a May 28 statement. “The technologies resulting from our IRD investments play a critical role in equipping the Department’s front-line operators with necessary tools to outpace our adversaries and enhance our preparedness and response capabilities.”
The strategic priority research areas for fiscal years 2024-2030 are:
- Advanced sensing – next-generation sensor capabilities to provide enhanced detection performance against a broad spectrum of threats.
- AI and autonomous systems – automated technologies to provide predictions, recommendations, or decisions across a wide variety of operating environments, including the means to deal with adversarial AI.
- Biotechnology – augmented capabilities to predict, detect, and defend against current and emerging bioagents and biotechnologies of concern.
- Climate change – technologies to strengthen climate adaptation and resilience, improve equity, protect critical infrastructure, and reduce carbon emissions.
- Communications and networking – enhanced communications and networking capabilities, while maintaining security and resiliency.
- Cybersecurity – enhanced resiliency, protection, and operational assurance across data, software, hardware, and communications networks.
- Data integration, analytics, modeling, and simulation – enhanced, integrated data ecosystems, analytics, and modeling to enable better and more accurate data-driven insights, predictions, and decisions.
- Digital identity and trust – enhanced capabilities to establish and verify both individuals’ identities and the validity, integrity, and privacy of associated data.
DHS said it will collaborate with stakeholders to advance the implementation of the strategic plan by developing IRD investment roadmaps for each of the eight priority areas. The department said these roadmaps will inform its budget process starting in fiscal year 2026.
