| NSF Org: |
CMMI Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation |
| Recipient: |
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| Initial Amendment Date: | November 26, 2018 |
| Latest Amendment Date: | November 26, 2018 |
| Award Number: | 1906097 |
| Award Instrument: | Standard Grant |
| Program Manager: |
Georgia-Ann Klutke
gaklutke@nsf.gov (703)292-2443 CMMI Division of Civil, Mechanical, and Manufacturing Innovation ENG Directorate for Engineering |
| Start Date: | December 1, 2018 |
| End Date: | November 30, 2019 (Estimated) |
| Total Intended Award Amount: | $50,000.00 |
| Total Awarded Amount to Date: | $50,000.00 |
| Funds Obligated to Date: |
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| History of Investigator: |
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| Recipient Sponsored Research Office: |
4400 UNIVERSITY DR FAIRFAX VA US 22030-4422 (703)993-2295 |
| Sponsor Congressional District: |
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| Primary Place of Performance: |
4400 University Drive Fairfax VA US 22030-4422 |
| Primary Place of
Performance Congressional District: |
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| Unique Entity Identifier (UEI): |
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| Parent UEI: |
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| NSF Program(s): | OE Operations Engineering |
| Primary Program Source: |
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| Program Reference Code(s): |
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| Program Element Code(s): |
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| Award Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Fund Agency Code: | 4900 |
| Assistance Listing Number(s): | 47.041 |
ABSTRACT
This award supports a conference that convenes researchers, educators, and representatives from a variety of government sectors to discuss challenges and explore opportunities for collaboration in disrupting illicit supply networks. Networks that illegally traffic in everything from people and drugs to human organs and nuclear material pose significant threats to U.S. health, prosperity and security. Unencumbered by national boundaries, they funnel illicit profits to criminal organizations, and fuel transnational and terrorist organizations. In FY2018, the National Science Foundation issued a Dear Colleague Letter (NSF 18-059) that solicited proposals for innovative, convergent approaches to understanding and mitigating the effects of illicit supply networks. Nine new EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) awards were made, representing 29 investigators from diverse fields, including operations research, the social sciences, computer science and materials science focused on advancing the scientific understanding of how such illicit supply networks function and how to disrupt them. This conference brings together these and other interested researchers, along with NSF program directors and representatives from many different governmental agencies and federally-sponsored Centers of Excellence, to nurture this emerging research community.
The conference will bring together domain experts and quantitative researchers to explore new analytical approaches and engineering methods to disrupt and disable illicit supply networks. Day 1 of the conference includes keynotes and grantee lightening talks, as well as concurrent sessions on specific illicit supply network domains (human/organ/arms trafficking; narcotics/drugs/counterfeit products trafficking, financial fraud). Day 2 of the conference will include a keynote speaker, facilitated breakout sessions and discussion on topics related to this research area. These discussions will include representatives from a host of other government agencies whose missions involve various aspects of interdicting illicit supply networks but in the US and internationally. The conference also provides opportunities for student involvement. It will provide a unique forum to commune a variety of stakeholders to encourage research on this important societal topic.
This award reflects NSF's statutory mission and has been deemed worthy of support through evaluation using the Foundation's intellectual merit and broader impacts review criteria.
PROJECT OUTCOMES REPORT
Disclaimer
This Project Outcomes Report for the General Public is displayed verbatim as submitted by the Principal Investigator (PI) for this award. Any opinions, findings, and conclusions or recommendations expressed in this Report are those of the PI and do not necessarily reflect the views of the National Science Foundation; NSF has not approved or endorsed its content.
In March 2018, the National Science Foundation (NSF) issued a Dear Colleague Letter (DCL) that solicits EArly-concept Grants for Exploratory Research (EAGER) proposals to advance analytical methods to detect, disrupt and disable illicit supply networks (https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2018/nsf18059/nsf18059.jsp). The primary objective of this DCL was to facilitate convergence research across quantitative researchers and qualitative researchers working in different domains of criminal activities. The research under this initiative was expected to produce new knowledge on possible overlaps and interconnectivities of various types of illicit supply networks and effective disruption methods of such networks.
A total of 9 awards were made under the first round of this DCL (http://bit.ly/2vxGFwO). Subsequent to these awards, NSF/ENG made a decision to sponsor a conference to bring together the awardees (PIs, Co-PIs, and other key personnel), other researchers interested in this DCL, and policy makers and practitioners working in this field. About 200 participants met at the conference held on March 24-25, 2018 at the Arlington Campus of George Mason University (GMU). The conference provided opportunities for the participants to: share their knowledge; discuss future directions of the research; and explore possible collaborations.
The themes covered under the conference included:
a) Human Trafficking
b) Arms/Drug Trafficking
c) Antiques/Wildlife/Organ Other Trafficking
d) Pharmaceutical and Other Counterfeit Product Trading
e) Financial Fraud/Money Laundering
f) Cybersecurity/Darknet Trading
The conference revealed several key issues. It was evident that many of the key challenges and concerns were commonly seen across the covered themes. These included: i) dynamic, evolving nature of the crime, which makes the law enforcement challenging; ii) the rise in online and Darknet-based transactions seen across various types of trafficking, but particularly in wildlife, drug and counterfeit trafficking; iii) transnational crime organizations engaging in different types of trafficking activities as well as the involvement of terrorist organizations in the crime; and iv) lack of coordination and collaboration across different agencies and organizations working in the field; v) insufficient integration of academic research and expertise into practice; and vi) general scarcity of data that could enable researchers and law enforcement agencies co-develop tools and models to effectively disrupt illicit supply networks.
There was a general consensus that the individualized approaches from academic research, governmental agencies, NGOs and private sectors are no longer effective in disrupting these illicit supply networks. There is a need for a more convergence approach, involving experts from multiple disciplines and institutions. In terms of the disciplines, collaborative approach involving behavioral science, geospatial analysis, computer science and data mining, criminal network analysis, and business modeling was suggested. In terms of integrating efforts across different federal agencies and organizations, the lack of funding as well as the system to implement coordination and integration were noted as the bottlenecks.
Regarding the general scarcity of and difficulty in accessing relevant data, several experts noted that there are private and public organizations that own important data, but these data are neither shared with nor utilized by researchers and law enforcement entities. Getting cooperation from these organizations was considered as one of the keys in expanding the knowledge and developing effective tools to disrupt the networks. In relation to this, some experts commented that analyzing data on (online and other) money flows and sales transactions is a promising direction. Here, the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to analyze such data was particularly encouraged.
In general, the conference attendees were in favor of and see values in mathematical modeling, computer science, and other quantitative approaches. However, they listed a few challenges that they face as they try to incorporate these models and academic research findings into practice:
- A variety of different approaches and methods used in the research: These differences were noted in terms of data as well as time coverage of the data, estimation and sampling methods, and definitions used to identify crime.
- The tendency of research studies to focus on some specific problem(s) instead of providing a solutions.
- Also noted was the dependence on assumptions, some of which are not realistic from the practitioners’ perspectives.
Despite these noted challenges, the conference participants did not consider that these are unsurmountable problems. Many experts suggested more collaborative work across different disciplines and institutions as well as involving domain social scientists and practitioners in quantitative research in academia.
Last Modified: 01/09/2021
Modified by: Naoru Koizumi
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