Minerva Initiative

The Minerva Initiative is a research program sponsored by the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) that provides grants to sustain university-based, social science studies on areas of strategic importance to U.S. national security policy.

Secretary of Defense Robert M. Gates commissioned the Minerva Initiative under the vision of "... a consortia [sic] of universities that will promote research in specific areas.

Three key priorities reflect the objectives of the Secretary of Defense for the Minerva Initiative:"1) Leverage and focus the resources of the Nation's top universities.

2) Seek to define and develop foundational knowledge about sources of present and future conflict with an eye toward better understanding of the political trajectories of key regions of the world.

Hugh Gusterson, a prominent anthropologist at George Mason University, wrote a series of articles in a variety of venues that have attracted significant attention,[9] any attempt to centralize thinking about culture and terrorism under the Pentagon's roof will inevitably produce an intellectually shrunken outcome.

[10]The journalist Nafeez Ahmed has expressed concern that Minerva research, in its effort to understand mass mobilization, may be targeting peaceful activists, NGOs and protest movements.

In this framework, the Boston Marathon bombing becomes a national security problem, whereas the Sandy Hook massacre remains a matter for the police and psychologists—a distinction that is both absurd as social science and troubling as public policy.