Minerva Research Initiative

Minerva Research Initiative is sponsored by U.S. Department of Defense (DoD). The Minerva Research Initiative is the DoD's flagship basic research program for the social sciences, designed to deepen understanding of social, cultural, political, economic, informational, and technological forces shaping global security outcomes.

It supports rigorous, multidisciplinary academic inquiry into how societies behave, how information moves, and how conflict emerges. Research areas include strategic competition, geopolitical alignment, cross-cultural influence, political behavior, and information ecosystems.

The Department of Defense today announced $46. 8 million in grants to 19 university-based faculty teams under its Minerva Research Initiative. These three- to five-year awards support basic research in social and behavioral sciences on topics relevant to U.S. national security.

"In a rapidly changing world, social science is essential for making sense of human behavior, guiding informed decisions, and understanding societal progress," said Dr. David Montgomery, director of social science in the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering "We need to explore and better understand the complex social dynamics that shape our world and provide insights useful to policymakers and others concerned with the social context of security."

Through its network of faculty investigators, the Minerva Research Initiative builds strong connections to the social science community to help DoD better understand and prepare for future challenges, guided by priorities established in the National Defense Strategy.

R&E and the Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Policy selected 19 university awardees from over 150 applicants in eight categories, using merit-based metrics that evaluated proposals for their potential to make foundational contributions to basic social science, alignment with the National Defense Strategy, and potential impact. The awarded projects include: 1.

**Social Cohesion in Action: How Collectivists and Interdependent Communities React to Adverse Events** Topic Area: Societal Cohesion in Crisis Principal Investigator: Delia Baldassarri, New York University 2. **How Is Organized Crime Organized?

Understanding the Political Economy, Industrial Organization, and Recruitment Into Organized Crime in Colombia** Topic Area: Societal Cohesion in Crisis Principal Investigator: Christopher Blattman, University of Chicago 3. **China's Rise and Societal Cohesion in the Indo-Pacific: Concepts, Measures, Implications** Topic Area: Societal Cohesion in Crisis Principal Investigator: Allen Hicken, University of Michigan 4.

**Mapping Societal Cohesion, Disinformation, and Adversary Influence Operations, and Group Formation in African Crisis Regions** Topic Area: Societal Cohesion in Crisis Principal Investigator: Jacob Lewis, Washington State University 5.

**Conflict Resilience Across Scales: Theory and Data to Evaluate Societal Resilience to Water and Climate Shock** Topic Area: Considering Societal Resilience at Multiple Scales Principal Investigator: Kate Brauman, University of Alabama 6.

**Modelling Scales of Societal Resilience to Concurrent Shocks in the Asia-Pacific Region** Topic Area: Considering Societal Resilience at Multiple Scales Principal Investigator: Michael Frachetti, Washington University in St. Louis 7. **"Un"Resilience: Drawing Insights from Societal Collapse** Topic Area: Considering Societal Resilience at Multiple Scales Principal Investigator: Jose Padilla, Old Dominion University 8.

**Anticipating Coastal Population Mobility: Path to Maladaptation or Sociopolitical Stability** Topic Area: Sociotechnical Adaptation to Climate, Food, and Water Stress Principal Investigator: Anamaria Bukvic, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University 9.

**Modeling Climate-Induced Societal Adaptation and Population Displacement** Topic Area: Sociotechnical Adaptation to Climate, Food, and Water Stress Principal Investigator: Erik Wibbels, University of Pennsylvania 10. **Harmonizing Research Into AI Futures and Governance** Topic Area: Social Impact of Technological Change Principal Investigator: Nicholas Evans, University of Massachusetts, Lowell 11.

**Machine-Moderated Moral Injury: Exploring the Double-Edged Sword of Algorithmic Decision-Making in National Security** Topic Area: Social Impact of Technological Change Principal Investigator: Neil Shortland, University of Massachusetts, Lowell 12. **Randomized Controlled Trials to Examine the Impact of Generative AI** Topic Area: Social Impact of Technological Change Principal Investigator: Alexander Volfovsky, Duke University 13.

**The Language of Parasocial Influence and the Emergence of Extremism** Principal Investigator: Joshua Plotkin, University of Pennsylvania 14. **Beyond the Clock: Understanding Cross-Cultural Temporal Orientation of Military Officers** Topic Area: Temporal Orientation and Strategic Considerations Principal Investigator: Erika Frydenlund, Old Dominion University 15.

**TimeBase: Systematically Mapping and Modeling Temporal Differences in Strategic Thinking, Signaling, (Inter-) Acting between the U.S., Russia, and China, and How They Matter** Topic Area: Temporal Orientation and Strategic Considerations Principal Investigator: Adam Stulberg, Georgia Institute of Technology 16.

**Cooperation and Conflict Dynamics in Deterrence Networks** Topic Area: Evolving Contexts of Deterrence Principal Investigator: Michael Gabbay, University of Washington 17. **Empirical Study of Deterrence in the Context of Great Power Competition** Topic Area: Evolving Contexts of Deterrence Principal Investigator: Renard Sexton, Emory University 18.

**Military Adaptation and War Termination** Topic Area: War Termination Processes and Prospects Principal Investigator: Jacob Aronson, University of Maryland 19. **What Sustains and Ends Wars: Will to Fight to Secure Ontological Significance Versus Material Capacity to Pursue Power** Topic Area: War Termination Processes and Prospects Principal Investigator: Scott Atran, University of Oxford