Vice President for Research

Minerva’s University Research program aims to support innovative basic research projects that contribute to the advancement of social science and provides new methods and understandings on social and behavioral questions of security and defense-related interest. Background Minerva aims to improve DoD’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S. The research program seeks to:

• Leverage and focus the resources of the Nation's top universities;
• Define and develop foundational knowledge about sources of present and future conflict with an eye toward better understanding of the political trajectories of key regions of the world; and
• Improve the ability of DoD to develop cutting-edge social science research and foreign area and interdisciplinary studies that is developed and vetted by the best scholars in these fields.
• Minerva brings together universities, research institutions, and individual scholars and supports interdisciplinary and cross-institutional projects addressing specific topic areas determined by the Office of the Secretary of Defense.

Program Description/Objective The Minerva Research Initiative (Minerva) emphasizes questions of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy. It seeks to increase the Department’s intellectual capital in the social sciences and improve its ability to address future challenges and build bridges between the Department and the social science community. Minerva brings together universities and other research institutions around the world and supports multidisciplinary and cross-institutional projects addressing specific interest areas determined by the Department of Defense. The Minerva program aims to promote research in specific areas of social science and to promote a candid and constructive relationship between DoD and the social science academic community. The Minerva Research Initiative competition is for research related to six (6) topics listed below. Innovative white papers and applications related to these research areas are highly encouraged. Detailed descriptions of the interest areas—which are intended to provide a frame of reference and are not meant to be restrictive—can be found in Appendix B: Minerva Research Topics of Interest. Topic 1: Societal Cohesion and Conflict Topic 2: Advancing Influence Measurement(s) Topic 3: Arctic at the Polar Crossroads Topic 4: Cultural Resilience, Climate, and Human Security in Oceania Topic 5: Social Impact of Technological Change Topic 6: Deterrence and Competition across Military and Civilian Spheres

White paper submissions are due on Friday, November 29th. Application is available on grants.gov: https://www.grants.gov/search-results-detail/356694. FYI, if you apply, please coordinate the submission with our College Grants Officer Christine Gore.

https://minerva.defense.gov *Note: This would be a great external funding target to pursue for the Remote & Austere Condition Grand Challenge.