Our Mission

Overview

The Social Science and Intelligence Research Network (SSIReN) is a national body of scholars dedicated to undertaking and translating world-class research from across the social sciences and affiliated disciplines to challenges facing Australia’s national security and intelligence communities.

Background

In 2019 the Office of National Intelligence commissioned a report on behalf of the National Intelligence Community (NIC) by the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. The project was overseen by a six-person Expert Working Group who engaged over 30 leading Australian practitioners and social science researchers in Defence, intelligence and national security. The activities of the project included client consultations, briefing papers, research reports, and a two-day Expert Workshop in Canberra.

The report found that the systematic, transparent and transferable knowledge that formal social science research provides is an essential foundation and complement to an intelligence analyst’s intuition and training and that intelligence analysis needed to better incorporate the social sciences - economic, political, societal and cultural forces - and the human behaviours and motivations that underpin them.

It also highlighted Australia’s significant capability in a number of social science fields directly relevant to intelligence analysis and provided four recommendations for addressing the gap between the research and intelligence communities in Australia, including efforts designed to enhance:

• strategic workforce, training and recruitment within the national security and intelligence communities;

• more effective and secure pathways for transitioning the results of social science research into practice;

• adjustments to research funding, priorities and incentives structures in order to provide for national security and intelligence requirements;

• deeper engagement between the two communities, including collaborative research spaces that bridge the classified and unclassified realms.

SSIReN has been established as a response to this report. We are a collaborative network that brings together the intelligence community and relevant scholars to learn from each other and help facilitate the transition of social science research into national security and intelligence policy making and practice. It has three key aims:

1. To identify and promote national security and intelligence research priorities relevant to the social sciences.

2. To deepen engagement between the research and practitioner communities.

3. To meet the needs of the current and future national security and intelligence workforce and provide opportunities for graduates and early career researchers.

Activities & Outcomes

SSIReN will act as a mechanism to support multiple activities that work to the above aims. This is both a coordinating and collaborating function, to include actions that:

· Channel the research interests and priorities of national security agencies to the right research communities via a directory of researchers and repository of research.

· Host research forums including conferences, symposia, and workshops that, at various stages, initiate, develop or disseminate research.

· Establish and grow collaborative inter-disciplinary networks between academics, institutions and government partners and facilitate pathways to transition the results of social science research into practice.

· Support external collaborative research funding bids; principally by bringing together practitioners and scholars with shared interests and, where possible, facilitating direct tasking from departments and agencies.