FEDERAL CYBERSECURITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIC PLAN (2019) • Research innovative ways to develop talent in all sectors of society to build the cybersecurity • • • • workforce, improve the preparation, increase the participation, and ensure the contributions of individuals from groups that have traditionally been underrepresented and underserved in science and engineering. Study effective models and ecosystems used in other countries to understand how to build partnerships in support of developing cybersecurity talent. Study the supply-and-demand forces in the innovation workplace to help predict future workforce needs. Include considerations of educational pathways and potential retraining opportunities. Support experiential learning, such as apprenticeships, internships, job-shadows, and other employer-educator partnerships, to align curriculum with workplace demands. Apply the research to develop systems that enable reskilling Americans for the jobs of today and the future. Promote distributed, highly scalable educational tools and expand the use of mentoring and apprenticeship as force multipliers in critical areas. Engage in strategic cybersecurity educational planning that considers how emerging technologies—including artificial intelligence, machine learning, and quantum information sciences—alter the cybersecurity focus of the Nation’s workforce. Accelerate adoption of convergence research among faculty and students to solve complex scientific, engineering, and societal problems that require integrating knowledge, methods, and expertise from different disciplines and forming novel frameworks to catalyze scientific discovery and innovation. Focus not only on developing the expertise and talent to build these systems but also on research that addresses how the education and training ecosystem can develop interdisciplinary approaches that support innovation. Conduct research to identify cybersecurity professionals capable of fostering the technological breakthroughs most critical to developing and sustaining a safe Internet environment. Enable “use-inspired research” in government-university-industry R&D partnerships that bring pressing, real-world challenges faced by industry to university researchers; leverage industry expertise to accelerate the transition of open and published research results into viable products and services in the marketplace for economic growth; and grow research and workforce capacity by linking university faculty and students with industry representatives. – 23 –