JHU SAIS Research Center to Play Key Role in New Homeland Security Center

The Department of Homeland Security announced on 12/5 the selection of The Johns Hopkins University to lead a national consortium that will investigate how the nation can best prepare for and respond to large-scale incidents and disasters. The Center for Transatlantic Relations at JHU's Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) will lead international dimensions of the consortium's work.

The Center for the Study of High Consequence Event Preparedness and Response based at Johns Hopkins, the fifth national DHS Center of Excellence, will receive $15 million in federal funding over the next three years to research deterrence, prevention, preparedness and response to both man-made and natural disasters, including hurricanes and terrorist attacks. One of the key goals of the center, which begins its work immediately, is to educate the next generation of leaders in science, policy and public service in these and related fields.

"We all hope and pray there will never be another 9/11 or Hurricane Katrina," said Johns Hopkins University President William R. Brody. "If there is, however, the knowledge developed by this new center will go a long way toward assuring the best possible preparation and the most humane, coordinated effort possible to assist victims and speed recovery."

Daniel Hamilton, director of the SAIS Center for Transatlantic Relations, said, "This new DHS endeavor builds on our center's ongoing work on the international dimensions of homeland security, and we look forward to working with new partners on these activities, particularly on how the U.S. and its allies can prevent, deter, respond and recover from high consequence threats." In 01/of this year, the center co-hosted "Atlantic Storm," an exercise that simulated a smallpox bioterrorism attack on the nations of the transatlantic community, spotlighting the critical need for emergency preparedness at an international level. In addition, the center's scholars have published this year three related books, Transatlantic Homeland Security, Protecting the Homeland and Transforming Homeland Security.

The Johns Hopkins School and Medicine, the Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Applied Physics Laboratory will be the university's leading partners for the new DHS center. In addition to SAIS's Center for Transatlantic Relations, other JHU participating divisions include the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences, the School of Professional Studies in Business and Education and the Whiting School of Engineering. The center will involve more than 90 researchers and scientists from a national consortium of 20 universities, non-governmental organizations and federal agencies.

For more details, please see the Department of Homeland Security's official announcement of the grant at www.dhs.gov.

SAIS is one of the country's leading graduate schools devoted to the study of international relations. Located along Embassy Row in Washington's Dupont Circle area, the school enrolls more than 450 full-time graduate students and mid-career professionals and has trained more than 11,000 alumni in all aspects of international affairs.