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Department of Defense Reaches Out
to Social Sciences Researchers with Minerva Grants

Barry Jagoda | February 2, 2009

Photo of Susan Shirk
Susan Shirk

Three social science researchers at UC San Diego working at the Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC) have just been awarded two multi-million dollar “Minerva” grants. The Minerva Research Initiative is a new competitive, peer-reviewed program supporting university-based basic research funded by the Department of Defense (DOD).  Both grants are for five years, renewable for a second five-year period.

The first project, "The Evolving Relationship between Technology and National Security in China," is led by UCSD China authority Susan Shirk and Senior Research Fellow Tai Ming Cheung, an expert on the Chinese military. The Stockholm International Peace Research Institute and the Hoover Institution at Stanford University will be collaborating partners. In addition, faculty from UCSD’s School of International Relations and Pacific Studies (IR/PS) and mathematics department as well as from other UC campuses and several other leading U.S. research universities will be taking part. The project will examine China's drive to become a world-class defense and dual-use (civilian and military) technological and industrial power through a wide-ranging investigation into the dynamics of the evolution of the Chinese defense and dual-use science, technology, and industrial base. China is mobilizing its burgeoning economic, political, organizational, military, and scientific resources to carry out its long-term goal of becoming a global technological champion.

Photo of Tai Ming  Cheung
Tai Ming Cheung

"We hope to shed light on the security and economic implications of this transformation for the United States, its allies, and the Asia-Pacific region," Cheung said.

The second project, "Terrorism, Governance and Development," will be directed by Princeton's Jacob Shapiro and Eli Berman, a UCSD economist known for research on religious radicals. The project explores the extent to which terrorism and insurgency are a symptom of poor governance and underdevelopment; it aims to develop an integrated theory of political violence and test it by collecting new data on the use of political violence by religious radicals and other rebels.

“This integrated theory will hopefully encourage and inform U.S. nation-building efforts in conflict areas,” said Berman. “We’ve made significant discoveries so far, but Minerva funding will allow us to accelerate --supporting more students and subprojects, and adding postdoctoral fellows. My colleagues in political science and at IR/PS have already established UCSD’s intellectual leadership in studying political violence. We will collaborate to build on that existing strength.”

Photo of Eli Berman
Eli Berman

The university-based Minerva program focuses on areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy. It seeks to increase intellectual capital in the social sciences and improve the ability of DOD to address future challenges and build bridges with the social science community. There were more than 211 applications from universities in the U.S. and abroad for the Minerva grants, with a total of seven awarded.  Total grant monies for the two projects to be administered at UCSD are $13 million.  Minerva is the Roman name for Athena, the Greek goddess of both war and wisdom.

"We are very pleased that Secretary Gates is recognizing the importance of the social sciences in national security issues,” said Peter Gourevitch, IGCC's acting director and founding dean of the School of International Relations and Pacific Studies. “There is great value in these long-term, multi-year studies on these kinds of issues.”

 

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