From the Director
by Jim Jones
For the CINA center, 2022 was a year of growth and a steady return to normal operations. The center's active research portfolio nearly doubled in size, our online presence and digital archives continued to grow, and we once again held multiple in-person events.
The CINA research function is that of a concentrator and connector. Over the first five years of the center's operation, we established a network of domain and research expertise in areas related to countering transnational organized crime, allowing us to act as a focal point and resource for problems and knowledge in that space. Concurrently, we established relationships with DHS components and personnel in order to understand the problems they face, and we serve the role of connecting those problems with ideas and solutions from the best and brightest academic researchers. As a result of these efforts, our active research portfolio grew from 17 projects in 2021 to 31 projects in 2022 and represents a broad cross-section of the center's thematic focus areas and DHS components. Our network of researchers grew accordingly and now numbers over 50 college and university partners across the country and in selected partner countries.
Our education and workforce development and outreach efforts continued apace and included hosting 25 faculty and students from Minority Serving Institutions (MSIs) for a full week on campus, supporting four MSI Summer Research Teams on campus and for follow-on funding, and placing interns with ICE and HSI. We also supported two successful in-person hackathon events, hosted a full slate of distinguished speakers in both hybrid and online formats, held an in-person annual meeting, and grew the online digital assets of the center in the form of videos, research project information and descriptions, and peer-reviewed papers.
As of 2022, the CINA center has crossed the mid-point of an initial 10-year funding plan. At this time, we have a robust portfolio of research, outreach, and education and workforce development activities, and more to the point, we have the team and relationships to leverage that portfolio to make real impact for DHS, other US government and law enforcement entities, and our fellow citizens. We invite you to take a look at the rest of this report, and consider our capabilities, expertise, and performance. If you have challenges, we welcome them; if you have ideas, let's talk. We look forward to working with all of you to keep our homeland safe and secure.
Our Mission
The CINA Center serves as a strategic innovation partner for Homeland Security Enterprise (HSE) stakeholders, enhancing their efforts to combat networked criminal activities.
CINA helps shape the future HSE workforce that will excel in this complex operational landscape as it strives to protect our homeland.
By concurrently pursuing scientific advancements and practice breakthroughs, CINA assists the HSE to better comprehend, anticipate, and respond to challenges posed by evolving illicit operations.
Research Portfolio
The CINA center pursues a comprehensive set of programs and activities that are designed to equip practitioners, end users, decision makers, and U.S. policy makers in the homeland security enterprise with state-of-the-art knowledge, expertise, methods, tools, and technologies to help combat the growing threat of transnational crime.
While advances in information and communication technologies have benefited education, healthcare, and other crucial areas of society, transnational criminal operations have also taken advantage of technology to evolve, become more agile, and expand their scope. Today, transnational criminal networks can easily appear, disappear, and reorganize in response to operational opportunities and authority gaps.
Learn how CINA’s research addresses these complex problems.
Workforce Development and Outreach
The CINA Center pursues three categories of workforce and professional development activities related to its mission of disabling transnational criminal organizations. Our Center strives to:
- Educate the future workforce: Develop integrative cross-disciplinary academic courses, at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, that build upon existing programs in science, technology, engineering, mathematics, and analytics. This curriculum will integrate findings from CINA research, and build upon connections with homeland security professionals.
- Create professional development opportunities: Offer methods to strengthen the substantive, scientific, engineering, business, and analytical capabilities of the current homeland security workforce as they face diverse and novel transnational crime challenges.
- Improve workforce diversity: Focus on minority recruitment through innovative interaction with Minority Serving Institutions.