Center for Information Protection

An NSF Industry/University Cooperative Research Center

Click here for presentations describing the Center and its technical expertise

The Center for Information Protection (CIP) is a partnership between Industry, Academia, and the Government to

pursue scientifically important and industry-relevant research in all aspects of computer and network security,
accelerate and promote the transfer of knowledge and technology

It will be a "win-win" partnership that enhances the ability of companies to compete globally, and that of universities to work on large and fundamental research problems of industry-relevance. The Center will be set up as a National Science Foundation (NSF) Industry/University Cooperative Research Center (I/UCRC), in collaboration with Iowa State University and New Jersey Institute of Technology. The I/UCRC model has an established track-record of highly successful partnerships between industry and academia for the past 25 years. About 80 such centers have been established in diverse areas of engineering, with about 100 university and 700 industry members, including many of the country's biggest corporations. The average annual industry investment in each of these centers is between 1 and 2 million dollars. To learn more about our CIP, please read on, or check our FAQ.

The vision of CIP is to become a world-leader in cyber security, and the preeminent forum to address the scientific and technological challenges faced by the industry in their quest to support an increasingly network- and information-centric society. It will bring together some of the most talented researchers and practitioners from around the country, both from academia and the industry.

The Center's research will leverage our faculty's strong reputation as one of the nation's leading research groups in cyber security, with close to a dozen faculty members and over two dozen graduate students. Current cyber security research funding from organizations such as the NSF, DARPA, ONR, Army Research, Airforce Research, and the State of New York exceeds $2 million per year. We publish over a dozen papers each year in some of the most prestigious forums in cyber security. We have also been recognized by the National Security Agency as a Center of Excellence in Information Assurance Education.

Membership in the Center provides the following benefits:

It provides a cost-effective way to leverage research investments: the typical investment by a company in an I/UCRC buys access to a research enterprise that is about 20 times larger. By pooling resources together, members can undertake precompetitive research that none of them may be able to afford individually. Membership dollars go farther than usual since the University matches 25% of the membership fees, and since NSF provides additional funds as well.
Members shape the research agenda of the Center so that it can produce results that are of direct value to the members.
Members get early access to technical results, software and other technology being developed by the Center faculty, including the results of most federally sponsored research projects being carried out outside the CIP. Based on our past experience, we anticipate that such outside funding will at least quadruple the total size of the research program whose results are accessible to the members.
Interactions with the Center faculty provide an ideal mechanism for knowledge transfer, where the industry participants can learn about the latest research and technological advances that are being made in the field, while the faculty learn about important practical problems being faced by the industry.
Members get access to trained professionals and experts in cyber security. Typical membership fee supports a single graduate student for a whole year. When these students graduate, member companies have an edge in recruiting them as compared to outside companies.
Membership in a leading university-based research center can bring prestige to a company, credibility to its initiatives carried out though the Center, and enhance its corporate image.

The I/UCRC program has developed a blueprint for successful management of these Centers. This includes a set of organizational structures, procedures, policies and practices that are well-accepted by the hundreds of university and industry partners on matters pertaining to funding, project selection, progress monitoring, intellectual property rights, and so on.