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The 2011 Federal Cybersecurity Research and Development Plan cites "Accelerating Transition to Practice (TTP)" as one of five strategic objectives in the Cyber Security and Information Assurance (CSIA) Program Component Area. TTP remains a strategic objective of Agencies which fund cybersecurity research, including NSF. However, the NSF cybersecurity portfolio contains only a small amount of security research that has been transitioned into operational activities. The Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) of the White House defines transition to practice as research that "creates measurable improvements in the cybersecurity landscape". Although NSF encourages security researchers with promising applied research projects to submit TTP (Transition to Practice) projects, a very low percentage of researchers take advantage of this opportunity. This EAGER will serve as an outreach vehicle to cybersecurity Principal Investigators (PIs), informing them of the advantages of engaging in a TTP and instructing them on the differences between a traditional research proposal and a TTP-focused one. The PI's will conduct workshops at three PI meetings for NSF programs - Cybersecurity Innovation for Cyberinfrastructure (CICI), Campus Cyberinfrastructure (CC*) and Secure and Trustworthy Cyberspace (SaTC) as well as at several academic conferences, including USENIX Security and Security and Privacy (S&P) among others.
In 2015, NSF sponsored two workshops which brought together key stakeholders to provide insights on how to improve the TTP process and encourage more TTP submissions. An important outcome of that workshop was the identification of specific barriers to TTP. In order to keep momentum going from these workshops, this follow-on project identifies specific ways in which PI's can overcome these barriers as they consider how to address TTP. The project establishes workshops for PI's to write more focused proposals, and provides opportunities for the PI's to engage with the NSF-funded cybersecurity community to foster more transition of cybersecurity research into the hands of the operational Information Technology Community. The expected outcome is that NSF expands the impact of the cybersecurity research it funds by producing more TTP results in the near to mid-term in order to make cyberspace safer.
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EAGER: Creating a TTP Ecosystem Discovery and Support Resource for Cybersecurity Technology Transfer to Practice