Our Vision

"To lead innovation in collaborative management of threats to commerce, critical infrastructure, and national security."

This vision supports the mission of the Center for Threat Management by emphasizing the characteristics that make its research both unique and exceptional: collaboration and innovation.

Drawing upon two decades of operational research conducted on the asymmetric threat, CTM recognizes that effective threat management strategies are necessarily collaborative. No one organization has the capability or the capacity to address the effects of the widely varied and unpredictable spectrum of potential threats to safety, security, and unimpeded operations while balancing the routine priorities of business. As a result, CTM research underscores the importance of regional strategies that leverage collaborative partnerships between federal, state, and local government, the private sector, and academia.

We recognize that dedicated training and exercise programs, and even research and development organizations, are not in themselves unique. CTM programs, however, increase the relevance, realism, and cost-effectiveness of these activities through collaboration. By integrating priorities, objectives, and resources, the organizational burden and fatigue induced by the planning and execution of education, experimentation, and exercise programs is kept to a minimum. Moreover, through simultaneous engagement with multiple partners, the complex multi-agency, multi-jurisdictional environment that accompanies major incidents can be effectively represented and recreated.

At CTM, we embrace a culture of innovation. This culture ensures that we avoid the pitfall of “fighting the last fight” and maintain a focus on the leading edge, where the state of the art breaks down. CTM values innovation in the areas of policy, technology, tactics, and organizational strategy, where we assist in the identification and development of novel applications for current capabilities and implementation strategies for developing and transitional capabilities. We also facilitate the partnerships that enable innovation, increasing awareness of and access to innovative solutions for threat management.