The CSSP is led by the Defence Research and Development Canada, Centre for Security Science (CSS) on behalf of the Government of Canada and its partners across all levels of government, response and emergency management organizations, non-governmental agencies, industry and academia. The CSSP strengthens Canada’s ability to anticipate, prevent/mitigate, prepare for, respond to, and recover from natural disasters, serious accidents, crime and terrorism through the convergence of science and technology (S&T) with policy, operations and intelligence.The majority of the testing and evaluation component of the CSSP will be delivered through the Emergency Responder Test and Evaluation Establishment in Regina, Saskatchewan.
CSSP funds are distributed amongst a number of Communities of Practice, including Chemical, Biological, Radiological-Nuclear and Explosives (CBRNE) projects that are engaged in research and development on Biological, Chemical and Radiological subjects. It is not possible to know exactly the percentage specifically allocated to biological research alone as many of the projects respond to more than one of the CBRNE hazards. A portion of the funds are for overhead and overall management of the program.
Government of Canada
Funds are distributed to industry, government and academia through a Call for Proposals. Since 2002, the CBRNE Research and Technology Initiative (CRTI) and follow-on CSSP programs have conducted twelve Calls for Proposals through which it has implemented 337 research projects representing an investment of $415,000,000. The project partners have leveraged this investment by a similar amount of in-kind-contribution with a total, on a 10 years average, of a one-to-one the contribution ratio. However a number of projects have more than 1 to 1 leveraging, with the CSSP providing a greater proportion of the funds.
The CSSP amalgamates the mandates of three former CSS-led programs, building on their successes, lessons learned and best practices:
- The CRTI, which focused primarily on CBRNE counter-terrorism;
- The Public Security Technical Program, which expanded S&T efforts into other areas like critical infrastructure protection, cyber-security, surveillance, intelligence, interdiction, border security, emergency management systems (people, tools and processes) and interoperability; and
- The Canadian Police Research Centre, which focused on harnessing S&T for the benefit of police, fire and emergency medical services across Canada.
The participating departments, agencies and organizations are:
Canadian Food Inspection Agency
Defence Research and Development Canada
Defence Science and Technology Laboratory Porton Down
Department of National Defence
Health Canada
Public Health Agency of Canada
Public Safety Canada
Royal Canadian Mounted Police
Sunnybrook Hospital
United States Department of Agriculture
United States Department of Homeland Security
United States Environmental Protection Agency
Not applicable, please refer to attached file for CSSP projects.
