Collaborative Research: Critical Infrastructure Policy

<p>This collaborative research addresses the challenges of fashioning and implementing national critical infrastructure policies. The research addresses the efforts over the past eight years to fashion a coherent critical infrastructure policy, the involvement of different entities in those processes, the interplay with policies addressing other types of infrastructure, and the implications of changes in federal funding and grant programs. The extent to which the various coordination efforts have resulted in meaningful communities of interest, the commitment of relevant partners to undertaking the necessary actions, and the mechanisms that have been most effective in facilitating these are of particular theoretical interest. Advances in understanding these issues contribute to the policy process and public administration literature addressing the challenges of governing complex policy areas in extending scholarship about policy coherence, policy regimes, policy learning, policy coordination, and intergovernmental implementation. This research provides the basis for theoretically and empirically informed advice about the design of critical infrastructure policies and about the coordination of critical infrastructure programs. The integrative theme is the governance of complex policy areas. Addressing these necessitates actions that span multiple policy sectors, within and across different levels of government, and among private and public entities. A fundamental issue is the unification of these efforts in support of coordinated action. This research has noteworthy implications for not only critical infrastructures but also other complex policy areas such as responses to climate change, the depletion of the oceans, and lapses in food safety. The research engages graduate and undergraduate students with new frontiers in studying critical infrastructure policy and complex policy areas. The involvement of junior faculty facilitates future research on these topics.</p>