Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST)

在最近的案例演讲中，英国政府首席科学顾问报告说，63%的政府挑战的解决方案植根于行为和社会科学。在国家安全领域，安全威胁研究和证据中心(CREST)的任务是开展开创性的研究和翻译活动，以提供这种解决方案。到目前为止，我们的网络由来自35个英国和国际高等院校/中小企业的140名研究人员组成，为最终用户在工具、概念和能力建设方面做出了重大贡献(《独立评论》，2019年)。这些贡献包括提供对极右翼极端主义的社会和意识形态驱动因素的洞察，开发工具来从在线数据中推断风险，以及验证有效、道德的信息获取的新方法。我们的2020-2023年CREST计划建立在这个基础上，但使用了一个新的结构来促进灵活的、专注于解决方案的活动。我们的方法将提供：(1)与我们的资助者的挑战紧密联系在一起的研究，同时保持对学院的世界领先贡献；(2)我们对资助者不断发展的需求及其将研究转化为实践的努力的支持发生阶段性变化；(3)促进双方知识交流、研究相关性和专业发展的研究人员和利益相关者的新形式的合作；更新换代的中心，其24名研究人员和7名博士将与9名行政、沟通和从研究到实践的专业人员合作，将追求三个议程：研究议程将产生关于资助者挑战的关键方面的理论上有动机的、高质量的综合和原创研究。它将由八个项目组成，这些项目侧重于解决方案，在学科和方法上具有多样性，并遵循中心的伦理和开放的科学标准。在这样做的过程中，它既寻求培育探索和新想法，又寻求将成熟的概念带到实地验证。这一议程包括直接分配任务的机制，借以使资助者能够利用CREST网络的专门知识，确保对具体需求作出快速和及时的反应。这包括让研究人员在资助者内部开展评估和比较工作，我们认为这有助于影响和能力建设。为了应对新出现的挑战，佳洁士900k的资金将支持短期研究委托。资金将通过我们建立的透明和竞争的程序分配，该程序提供卓越的科学成果、利益相关者相关性和物有所值。结合我们现有的通信和网络活动，知识交流议程将继续创新，以确保研究在学术界、我们的资助者、政府和行业以及公众之间进行有效的沟通。我们将在同行评议的出版物、会议报告、技术报告和开放科学材料中向学术界传播我们的发现。我们将通过集中生产较少的、高质量的产品来吸引用户，并通过管理现有的CREST知识库以最大限度地提高时间短缺的用户社区的可及性(例如通过培训框架)。能力建设议程将通过各种活动扩大CREST充满活力的国际网络，从我们两年一次的150人会议，到小规模、注重挑战的住宅“短跑”。我们将特别努力触及代表性不足的学科，以促进新的研究人员和利益相关者的交流，引入新的观点，并促进相关中心和政府部门之间的协同作用。这项议程还将培训七名博士生，并继续努力为更广泛的ECR社区提供培训和资源。

In his recent CaSE speech, the UK Government Chief Scientific Adviser reported that 63% of the government's challenges have solutions rooted in the behavioural and social sciences. In the area of national security, it is the mission of the Centre for Research and Evidence on Security Threats (CREST) to undertake pioneering research and translational activities that deliver such solutions. To date, our network of 140 researchers from 35 UK and international HEI/SMEs has contributed significant instrumental, conceptual and capacity-building impact for end-users (Independent Review, 2019). These contributions include providing insights into the social and ideological drivers of far-right extremism, developing tools for making inferences about risk from online data, and validating new methods for effective, ethical information elicitation.Our 2020-2023 plan for CREST builds on this foundation but uses a renewed structure to foster agile, solution-focused activities. Our approach will deliver: (1) research that is tightly bound to the challenges of our funders while remaining world-leading in its contribution to the academy; (2) a step-change in our support for funders' evolving needs and their efforts to translate research into practice; (3) new forms of researcher-stakeholder co-working that promote knowledge exchange, research relevance, and professional development on both sides; and, (4) an engaged, collaborative international community of social scientists contributing to national security.The renewed Centre, whose 24 researchers and 7 PhDs will work with 9 administrative, communication, and research-to-practice professionals, will pursue three Agendas:The RESEARCH AGENDA will produce theoretically motivated, high-quality synthetic and original research on key aspects of the funders' challenges. It will comprise eight projects that are solution focused, diverse in disciplinary and methodological approach, and subject to the Centre's ethical and open science standards. In doing so, it seeks both to nurture exploration and new ideas, and to take mature concepts through to field validation. This Agenda includes mechanisms for DIRECT TASKING, whereby funders will be able to draw on the expertise of the CREST network, securing rapid and timely responses to specific needs. This includes having researchers undertake evaluative and comparative work within the funder, which we view as facilitating impact and capacity building. To respond to emerging challenges, £900k of CREST's funds will support short-term RESEARCH COMMISSIONING. Funds will be allocated via our established transparent and competitive process that delivers scientific excellence, stakeholder relevance, and value for money.Combining our existing communication and network activities, the KNOWLEDGE EXCHANGE AGENDA will continue to innovate to ensure that research is communicated effectively across academia, our funders, government and industry, and the public. We will disseminate our findings to the academic community in peer reviewed publications, conference presentations, technical reports, and Open Science materials. We will engage users by focusing our production on fewer, high quality outputs, and by curating the existing CREST knowledge base to maximise its accessibility to time-poor user communities (e.g. via training frameworks).The CAPACITY-BUILDING AGENDA will grow CREST's vibrant international network through a variety of events, from our biennial 150 attendee conference, to small-scale, challenge-focused residential 'sprints'. We will make a particular effort to reach underrepresented disciplines in order to foster new researcher-stakeholder exchanges, introduce new perspectives, and stimulate synergies across cognate centres and government departments. This Agenda will also train a cohort of seven PhD students, and continue our efforts to provide training and resources for the wider ECR community.