The Pentagon launched the Minerva Analysis Initiative in 2008 as a “DoD-sponsored, university-based social science analysis initiative that focuses on areas of strategic significance to the US nationwide safety coverage.” It’s meant “to determine and help primary social science analysis points in want of consideration and to combine these analysis insights into the policy-making surroundings.” Every spring, the DoD pronounces three-year grants (which will be prolonged as much as 5 years.
In his announcement of grants on 24 February 2022, Dr. Bindu Nair, the then Director, Fundamental Analysis Workplace within the Workplace of the Undersecretary of Protection for Analysis and Engineering, said that “the information and methodologies generated from Minerva awardees have improved DoD’s skill to outline sources of current and future battle with a watch towards higher understanding the political trajectories of key areas of the world.”
In FY 2021, the Minerva Analysis Initiative introduced $28.7 million in grants to 17 university-based school groups to help analysis in social and behavioral science. Grants awarded for 2022-2024 embrace tasks on the nationwide safety implications of local weather change, US relations with Russia and China, and the affect of local weather change on the Sahel. Dr. Leonardo Villalon of the College of Florida obtained a grant as principal investigator for a challenge on “Social and Institutional Determinants of Vulnerability and Resilience to Local weather Hazards within the African Sahel.”
In his announcement of grants on 26 Could 2023, Dr. David Montgomery, director of social sciences within the Workplace of the Undersecretary of Protection for Analysis and Engineering, said that “leveraging the strengths of the nation’s educational analysis establishments helps DoD outline sources of current and future conflicts, with a watch towards higher understanding the social and political trajectories of key areas of the world.”
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In FY 2022, MRI introduced $18 million in grants to 11 university-based school groups. Grants awarded for 2023-2025 embrace tasks on the web, the nationwide safety implications of local weather change, US relations with Russia and China, and the affect of local weather change on social and political stability in Africa. Dr. Arun Agrawal of the College of Michigan obtained a grant as principal investigator for a challenge on “Advancing Social Science Analysis on Demographic Shifts, Local weather Change, and Political and Social Stability in Sub-Saharan Africa. And Dr. Kathy Baylis of the College of California, Santa Barbara, as principal investigator for a challenge on “The Local weather-Meals-Urbanizations Nexus and the Precursors of Instability in Africa.”
As has been the case for the reason that inception of the Minerva Analysis Initiative program, one of many principal pursuits of the Pentagon is tasks which it hopes will assist it reply to the affect of local weather change on stability. Along with conducting humanitarian aid operations—which have all the time relied closely on the army and are sure to extend sooner or later—they’re satisfied that the “multiplier impact” of local weather change will even enhance the demand for army intervention in disaster areas. It’s not stunning, subsequently, to see grants to tasks for Africa and particular tasks for the Sahel.
