Science Technology and Innovation: Transforming the Complex Safety and Security Multi-level Landscape

ABSTRACT

The Science Technology and Innovation (STI) domain must evolve with emerging risks and threats that characterize the new defence, safety and security landscape. From CRTI to CSSP programs, starting with the crucial counter-terrorism approach after 9/11, and evolving to an all-hazards approach, DRDC CSS' STI community continued to look ahead as the current and future defence, safety and security landscape is now exponentially more diverse and complex. Indeed, it is now characterized by such issues as mass migration and refugee crisis, economic slowdowns in emerging markets, ever-rising numbers of terrorists, activists, extremists, cyberattacks, pandemics, active shooters, climate related disasters, global water shortages, energy security and food security. These regional national and global risks have been in the headlines particularly in the last few years and pose significant security challenges both nationally and globally in fact, national security is no longer just national. Non-state actors, cyber NGOs, rising powers, hybrid wars and crimes in strategic areas pose complex challenges to global security. The recent COVID 19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine illustrate the dramatic spillover effects across borders. Further, CSS with its large, capable and responsive community of partners continue to foresee, adapt and respond to newer incredibly difficult challenges such as pandemics, climate emergencies, highly "contagious” extremism/ polarization/ radicalization and fast-spreading mis-/dis-information campaigns across the globe. This chapter presents an overview of the complex safety and security landscapea and illustrates how the uptake/exploitation/impact of DRDC CSS' STIb, within a remarkable culture that also embraced a Whole of Government approach, evolved over 20+ years into an era-defining program that is postured to continue to close otherwise extremely difficult-to-close Safety and Security gaps in Canada. © 2023, Crown.