Workshop Focuses on Sustainable Infrastructure Protection

A group of 30 critical infrastructure experts from government, industry and academia met in Cambridge, Mass., for a workshop co-hosted by GMU and the Kennedy School of Government (Harvard University) titled “Private Efficiency, Public Vulnerability: Developing Sustainable Strategies for Protecting Critical Infrastructure.”

During the May 27-28 workshop, which was funded by a grant from the Critical Infrastructure Project, participants discussed how to develop public policies and business strategies to enhance the resilience of critical infrastructures. They were particularly concerned with finding policies that are economically and politically sustainable.

“Developing such policies and strategies is particularly difficult in specific contexts where the drive for efficiencies in infrastructure operations increases inherent infrastructure vulnerabilities,” according to a report written about the meeting.

The conference was jointly organized by GMU faculty members Philip Auerswald and Todd M. La Porte and Kennedy School Professor Emeritus Lewis Branscomb. The organizers will work with participants to produce a workshop report emphasizing policy options. It will be released in January 2005. They also are planning to create a book based on the workshop and papers written by participants.