Developing a Transatlantic Understanding in Homeland Security Academic Education Provision

Abstract: At the dawn of the 21st century it is widely recognised that transnational terrorism can pose a major challenge to the security of nation-state. To manage this challenge, multi-agency collective efforts, beyond those at the domestic level, are needed. Though since 2001 there has been an invigoration of national security efforts, any multinational security efforts will be successful only if there is a shared understanding of the domestic and multilateral institutional architectures, both existing and needed, to combat terrorism and respond to man-made or natural catastrophic events The academic communities on both sides of the Atlantic have taken notice of the need for academic research and instruction in a Homeland Security (HS) based curriculum, but have responded differently to how this might best be achieved. US universities have largely developed entire HS academic programmes, but this has not been replicated in the European Union. Building upon a paper delivered at the 2010 ISA annual convention, this paper will examine the data that has been generated for a research project funded by the EU/US Atlantis Programme. This project analyses HS education provision in the US and EU, and will compare curricular coverage of comparative and international issues in homeland security.