Project Background:
The Mapping Exercise is an extension of the EPSRC funded project, ‘Evaluating Cyber Security Evidence for Policy Advice’ (ECSEPA). It is a five-month project funded through the Research Institute in the Science of Cyber Security (RISCS).
In advanced, industrialised states, cyber security policy has proven complex and challenging for a number of reasons. It permeates so many previously distinct issue areas that it is difficult to incorporate into existing governance structures. Ministerial portfolios change and adapt to reflect emerging connections and to reorganise competencies and responsibilities. But governments struggle with the best way to organise cyber security across and between departmental jurisdictions.
Research Objectives:
Central to the goals of the ECSEPA project, this mapping exercise seeks to map out the complex, rapidly developing UK cybersecurity policy landscape in order to understand, from an organisational angle, how to optimise effectiveness in governance and efficiency in service delivery. This involves developing clarity about how cyber security is organised within HMG – for example, where cyber security policy is being developed and implemented, how different issue bases interact and coincide, where there is duplication, and where there are gaps.
We see three parts to this project:
- Research Assistant, Sneha Dawda, will engage in four months of desk based research and interviews with cyber security policy makers in order to map out the landscape in HMG,
- Within that period, Sneha, PIs (Madeline Carr, Siraj Shaikh), a PDRA (Alex Chung), and an RA (Atif Hussain) will hold two workshops with the policy community to validate the model,
- The final element will involve developing a series of infographics that express the information in a visual and accessible way.
Invitation to Participate:
If you feel you would benefit from our research, we’d like to discuss opportunities to work together. This could involve allowing us to interview you, participating in our project meetings, or participating in a workshop which we will host in February 2018. If you have an interest in the Mapping Exercise or know someone else in the UK policy community who might, please get in touch so that we can discuss it further.
Project Team:
Dr Madeline Carr, (PI) Associate Professor in International Relations and Cyber Security at UCL STEaPP
Professor Siraj Shaikh, (Co-I) Systems Security, Coventry University
Ms Sneha Dawda, Research Assistant, UCL STEaPP
Dr Alex Chung, Research Associate, UCL STEaPP
Mr Atif Hussain, Research Assistant, Coventry University
Contact:
Dr Madeline Carr: m.carr@ucl.ac.uk 07528 672088
