The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) has been renewed for an additional three years of funding from the U.S. Department of Homeland Security's Office of University Programs in the Science and Technology (S&T) Directorate. Through this renewal, START will receive $5.2 million in the coming year and an anticipated $11.7 million through 2011. During the next three years, START will enhance and extend its ongoing research and education programs, focusing its investigations on three core areas:
- the radicalization process,
- the evolution of terrorist groups, and
- community resilience relative to the terrorist threat.
START will sponsor a total of 32 projects related to these core research areas between 2008 and 2011, with support from the Office of University Programs, as well as from the Human Factors Division and International Programs office of the S&T Division of DHS. These projects will involve more than 50 faculty researchers (more than half of which are new to the START consortium) and will employ theories and methods from a broad array of academic disciplines, including anthropology, communications, criminology, geography, international relations, political science, psychology, public health, and sociology.