Personnel Security Thesis, Dissertation, and Institutional Research Awards

The Personnel Security Research Center (PERSEREC) announces the continuation of a program to help fund (through its contracting agency, the Department of the Interior, National Business Center (DOI/NBC)) research addressing issues pertinent to personnel security policy. The areas covered by this funding program include:

Vetting Systems:

• Evaluation of methods for measuring the quality of personnel security products.

• Techniques for identifying organizational delinquents.

• Evaluation of methods for assessing character to include loyalty, trustworthiness, and reliability.

• Assessment of strategies to automate personnel security clearance processes.

• Development of investigative methods that promote self-disclosure of unfavorable information.

Continuing Evaluation:

• Research and development of better indicators for identifying cleared personnel who are security risks as well as the security risk associated with particular work groups, organizations, locations, and positions. This would include the design and development of supervisory assessment forms for evaluating the security worthiness of subordinates.

• Development and test of a taxonomy of types of motivation for different aspects of security compromise (e.g., espionage leaks, inadvertent disclosure). Determination of the implications for continuing evaluation policies and procedures of each type of compromise and motivation would also be of interest.

• Development and evaluation of alternative strategies for gathering continuing evaluation information. This could include such approaches as self-report forms, early warning systems for identifying cleared personnel who have security-relevant problems, new continuing evaluation screening instruments, etc.

• Development of approaches for better integrating continuing evaluation requirements with employee assistance objectives such that there is better optimization of security and human resource goals.

• Review and assessment of incentives and constraints pertinent to the reporting of security-relevant information by co-workers and supervisors which may reflect on the suitability of a cleared employee to be entrusted with or have access to classified information. Research could assess how much resistance to reporting exists within contractor and government employee populations and why.

• Development of improved content in security briefings and awareness training products. These products should help personnel understand and perform their security-relevant job duties as well as meet their responsibilities to protect classified information. For example, it would be of interest to know whether discussing espionage cases during training encourages or deters espionage.

• Development of program evaluation procedures to measure the impact of security awareness programs and activities. This would include the identification of objective indicators for assessing the level of security awareness in employee populations.

• Development of motivational enhancement techniques to promote appropriate security-relevant behavior (e.g., performance appraisal, goal setting, recognition and awards, and sanctions).

• Assessment and testing of the relative effectiveness of various delivery systems used in security awareness programs, possibly including live briefings, computer-based modules and job aides, video presentations, printed materials, and posters. Evaluation of delivery systems should take into consideration type of content, success at sustaining attention span, and retention of important concepts and ideas.

• Training of those who hold security responsibilities on how to identify and deal with at-risk employees and refer them to appropriate counseling or health providers.

Automated Systems for Personnel Security:

• Further validation of current financial, disciplinary, and incident-based measures, or the development and validation of new measures, for screening people on the basis of their potential for engaging in security-related offenses.

• Identification of financial, disciplinary, or incident-based indicators that signal individuals have been engaging in serious acts of trust betrayal, such as embezzlement, theft of trade secrets, etc.

• Creation of new financially-related security awareness and education programs, and assessment of the costs, benefits, and feasibility of modifying current employee financial assistance and counseling programs.

• Assessment of the behavioral and financial indicators reflective of pivotal changes (improvement or deterioration) in one's level of trustworthy, reliable, and conscientious behavior.

• Identification of information systems used by the private sector or other governmental entities for personnel security screening or offender detection that should also be utilized by the Department of Defense.

• Identification and evaluation of commercial and government databases that could be used to help identify individuals in positions of trust having unexplained affluence.

• Identification and evaluation of automated procedures for using large external databases to evaluate cleared personnel on a periodic basis.

Trust Betrayal

• Development of an unclassified source database containing information on Americans charged with illegally leaking information to unauthorized recipients.

• Review of current espionage and trust betrayal deterrence practices and evaluation of the relative effectiveness of those practices in deterring potential offenders.

• Creation of a database containing abstracts of all available personnel security research studies relating to trust betrayal, as well as a system that would enable it to be regularly updated.

• Development of a personnel security methodology to counter computer crime by insiders. 5) Conduct single-issue studies linking trust betrayal behavior with such hypothesized causal or contributing factors as substance abuse, alcoholism, financial difficulties, or mental illness. This would include a full review of literature on the subject and case histories.

• Creation of a source database containing information on individuals who have been prosecuted in the United States for the theft of proprietary information or critical US technology on behalf of foreign interests.

• Creation of a source database containing information on trusted insiders with access to information systems in the United States who have been prosecuted for computer crimes including sabotage, theft of data, destruction of data or software, or the compromise of systems security.

Amount: The maximum award for master’s degree thesis awards is $5,000/student. The maximum award for dissertation grants is $15,000/student. The maximum award for institutional awards is $30,000/project.

Deadline: Proposals based on this announcement may be submitted, and will be accepted, any time through 4:00 P.M. MST, 30 September 2008.

For further information, visit: http://www.nbc.gov/persecbaa.cfm