National Intelligence University's Role in Interagency Research: Recommendations from the Intelligence Community

The evolution of NIU resulted in two major institutional challenges: the need to change perceptions within the IC, and the need to establish NIU's role and responsibilities within the IC. Although NIU has a 50-year history of exclusively military intelligence education, it is now committed to educational excellence for the entire IC. Additionally, NIU awards master's degrees every year to students who have completed thesis research. Currently, these students work with CSIR and NIU faculty to determine research topics and locations in the IC where they can conduct their thesis research. There are no formally established collaborative relationships for this purpose. To help NIU and CSIR address their charge of conducting interagency research, we conducted a survey of entities within the IC that either produce or consume research to gain insight into where collaboration activities might take place, what types of collaboration would be feasible, and what the potential topics for research are. Within the agencies of the IC, there are a number of what we have termed research entities-- offices, divisions, units, or groups that conduct research. (Appendix B offers a list and descriptions of these entities.) Because research is the primary focus of these entities (although some are responsible for additional mission tasks in analysis, operations, support, etc.) we determined that concentrating on these entities would yield meaningful information with regard to interagency research collaboration.