[2] For a dozen years before the opening of the institute, then Mercyhurst College offered an undergraduate degree in intelligence studies as part of its ground-breaking Research/Intelligence Analyst Program (RIAP, or R/iap).
[3][4] The intense public debate in the United States immediately following the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, focused on intelligence analysts need for better training, which directed attention to Mercyhurst's already-growing program.
[3] The Federal Bureau of Investigation instituted a sabbatical program in 2005, through which senior analysts began to attend IIS-MU for advanced training.
[3] Robert J. Heibel, a retired Federal Bureau of Investigation special agent, founded the undergraduate program in 1992 and is now Executive Director of IIS-MU.
[7] The Bachelor of Arts in Intelligence Studies is a four-year interdisciplinary baccalaureate program which prepares a graduate to become an entry-level analyst for employment in the government or the private sector.
The project involved the development of a Mercyhurst wiki consisting of over 1,000 pages of analysis on the threat of global disease to the United States.
The second, entitled "The Intelligence-Policy Interface and Iraq in Britain and the United States" was given at a workshop on Intelligence, Policy and Comparative Politics in London.
[14] Students in a class led by Assistant Professor Kristan Wheaton earned certificates of appreciation from coalition forces and the Iraqis for a 1,000-page WIKI-based analysis product they completed for intelligence authorities in Baghdad.
[17][18][19] IIS-MU founded the Great Lakes Intelligence Initiative (GLII) in 2006 to promote the development and utilization of knowledge worker skills in the schools and businesses of northwestern Pennsylvania.