FEDERAL CYBERSECURITY RESEARCH AND DEVELOPMENT STRATEGIC PLAN (2019) Implementing the Plan Research and development funding is a scarce resource. For this reason, it is essential to invest wisely and selectively to avoid research redundancies. This section identifies the respective roles for the Federal Government, academia and research organizations, and the commercial sector; and identifies strategies for ensuring coordination of robust cybersecurity R&D among and across sectors. Federal Research Agencies The Federal Government is the primary source of funding for long-term, high-risk cybersecurity research initiatives. Science agencies such as the National Science Foundation have a leading role in funding cybersecurity R&D to support this Plan. Depending upon the agency, the research may be executed in-house; at national laboratories; or in academia via grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, or other agreements. The challenge for these agencies is twofold: (1) identifying and funding the most promising and important R&D initiatives, and (2) transitioning this research into practice. Science agencies should embrace and fund multidisciplinary research and continue to demand strong scientific methods in all funded initiatives. Mission agencies, such as the Department of Homeland Security, primarily fund applied research with a near-term or mid-term horizon to meet immediate and future mission requirements. Mission-specific R&D is often incremental in nature, and agencies should make special efforts to ensure that the desired functionality is not already available from the private sector, academia, or other Federal agencies. Both science and mission agencies should avoid funding near-term R&D unless it is directly related to mission-specific needs or creates public goods that industry is not incentivized to pursue. Research-funding agencies also have an obligation to ensure that their R&D investments promote research integrity and protect national research assets. This objective is among the priority crosscutting actions emphasized in the Administration’s FY 2021 Research and Development Budget Priorities Memorandum (M-19-25). In addition, the Subcommittee on Research Security of the NSTC Joint Committee on Research Environments (JCORE) has been established to lead Federal efforts in developing guidance and best practices to ensure that the Nation’s researchers are protected from undue foreign influence.30 Agencies should coordinate their actions in this area through this Subcommittee. Academia and Research Organizations Academia is the leading R&D performer of basic research and long-term, high-risk initiatives. Academics are strongly encouraged to embrace this Plan’s focus on measurable and testable efficacy and efficiency. Where possible, researchers should provide comparisons against open datasets to enable comparison and evaluation of competing techniques. Use of open datasets also enables reproducibility of experiments, which is a basic scientific tenet. Academic researchers should incorporate strategies for transitioning successful research into practice when developing proposals and initiating research. Academia strongly influences research directions through the promotion and tenure process. Academic institutions are strongly encouraged to value multidisciplinary cybersecurity research, even where publication occurs in nontraditional journals for the field. Institutions are also encouraged to value research with rigorously defined models and experimental design. 30 https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2019/07/Update-from-the-NSTC-Joint-Committee-onResearch-Environments-July-2019.pdf – 26 –