Strategic Areas of Focus

Human Dynamics and Social Behavior

Understanding human dynamics, defined as the actions and interactions of personal, interpersonal, and social/contextual factors and their effects on behavioral outcomes, is essential to global and national security.

GNSI will coordinate and support the necessary interdisciplinary expertise to expand this understanding and produce artifacts which inform decision makers and impact policy. 

An existing example includes the Human Dynamics Network (USFHDN), which USF established in 2021 to perform human dynamics analysis (HDA) studies to enhance HDA capabilities of USCENTCOM and other strategic government organizations. The USFHDN focuses broadly on human dynamics/predictive analytics and is composed of research and scholarship networks in critical sub-areas related to human dynamics.

GNSI supports the USFHDN’s hierarchical approach involving multiple colleges across USF’s campuses and including expertise in security-related domains and in qualitative research methodology, artificial intelligence (AI), as well as modeling and simulation (M&S) within the social and behavioral sciences.