Penn State’s Center for Security Research and Education and Center for Energy Law and Policy will jointly host a Solutions for Critical Infrastructure Protection virtual workshop on Tuesday, February 2, 2021, from 9:00 to 11:30 a.m. The workshop aims to identify and facilitate a community of researchers in critical infrastructure, broadly defined, and to explore possibilities for University-wide collaboration toward potential external funding opportunities. Breakout sessions will facilitate discussions of research activities, initiatives and opportunities in critical infrastructure design, protection, interdependencies, resilience, policy, governance, and ethics. Interested Penn State faculty members, researchers, administrators, and staff are invited to join us. Registration is required.

The potential breakout topics, listed below, focus on broad, interdisciplinary, and cross-cutting questions and challenges.

Integrated Systems and Interdependencies

Individual critical infrastructure sectors are increasingly integrated with each other and consequently vulnerable to a wider variety of threats that can lead to cascading failures within and across systems. Interdependencies may also decrease vulnerabilities and increase efficiency. This group will explore integrated approaches to managing sector interactions as well as the relationship of external factors such as economic forces that will be crucial to maintaining reliable infrastructure.

As just one example, recent fires in California, Oregon and Colorado impacted electrical and water supplies, transportation, emergency access, and other systems. Repeated hurricanes along the Gulf Coast impacting the same or nearby areas stretched similar infrastructure resources to or past the breaking point. Identifying and finding ways to manage such integrated systems and interdependent dynamics pro-actively will be the focus of this breakout.

Ethics, Equity and Governance

Infrastructure choices driven by economic, environmental and vulnerability priorities will necessarily entail benefits and costs that are unequally spread across populations. The set of stakeholders providing input into infrastructure decisions may also be unequally weighted, with some stakeholders having more formal or informal influence than others. This group will explore the effects of critical infrastructure governance, planning, design, and disruption across various populations, including those that may be neglected by traditional planning methods.

As just one example, siting of infrastructure like waste disposal or transportation has historically impacted minority or poorer communities. Re-imagining critical infrastructure while addressing such impacts is critical. How might public transportation systems be redesigned to reduce disproportionate impacts? How can equity considerations be brought to the forefront of infrastructure planning processes?

The Social Side of Infrastructure

Individuals and organizations are always “in the loop” of infrastructure design and operations. Design choices are made to satisfy objectives that may be wholly or partially different than the objectives of some or all users. Infrastructure choices and performance are also driven by social, cultural and legal contexts including public perception, privacy concerns, the role of markets versus regulated decision-making, and permissible uses of land and other capital. This group will consider the kinds of social structures and individual/group decision making processes that can enable or thwart infrastructure systems that are resilient and sustainable.

For example, smarter infrastructure systems can promise to deliver numerous social benefits, but also generate substantial amounts of user data. This raises not only privacy and security issues, but also legal questions around ownership and use of generated data. Public perception issues have always surrounded infrastructure siting and location decisions, and drivers of support and opposition are important for the deployment of better infrastructure solutions.

Obsolescence and Resilience

Despite the need to replace aging systems with new capacity, existing systems will need to be adaptive, responsive, and resilient well beyond their design lifetimes. This group explore how advanced technologies can be integrated into existing systems to enhance performance and resilience of critical infrastructure networks.

As roads, bridges, water systems, and other key pieces of infrastructure are nearing or past their planned lifespans, what opportunities do new technologies offer to extend and enhance their performance, and at what cost? Which systems should be given priority in constrained funding environments? Who should make such decisions? How do we update and upgrade such systems in a timely manner while ensuring attention to economic, social, and environmental considerations?

Environmental Hazards and Climate Change

Climate change increases the likelihood and severity of extreme weather events that can affect infrastructure in ways not well represented in current decision-making models. Specific areas or communities also differ greatly in their adaptive capacity to plan for and respond to extreme weather events. This group will explore how models for planning and risk assessment might be improved to reflect changing event frequencies or magnitudes, and how decision-makers could incorporate this information into planning processes.

As just one example, how might we enhance the built environment’s capacity to handle more extremes, e.g. heat, wind, and storm water?

Cybersecurity

Critical infrastructure sectors depend on (increasingly autonomous) computer systems and networks constantly under threat from malicious state and non-state actors. This group will explore cyber threats, and potential technical and legal and regulatory responses, and the effect of these responses on privacy.

As just one example, there are potential cyber-related threats associated with provision of water and energy. In addition, protecting critical information such as medical information such as electronic records have become the norm and telemedicine has jumped in use during the 2020 COVID-19 pandemic. This group will identify potential topics, challenges, and opportunities.

Sector and Technology-Specific Discussions

In addition to or integrated within the crosscutting topics listed above, we will also have opportunities for participants to discuss sector- and technology-specific questions and challenges. As examples, we may include a breakout session on the Transportation Systems Sector and/or integrate a discussion on electric vehicles in e.g. The Social Side of Infrastructure group. These topics will be based on participants’ interests.

Agenda

9:00 a.m.   —  Welcome and Introduction, Vice Admiral James W. Houck, Director, Center for Security Research and Education; Dr. Seth Blumsack, Director, Center for Energy Law and Policy

9:20 a.m.   —  Breakout Sessions

Questions for breakout groups:

1. 1. 1. 1. What challenges or issues do you see in this space? What solutions could be worth exploring?
         2. What opportunities for interdisciplinary or multidisciplinary research could arise within Penn State?
         3. Who is already doing potentially relevant research at Penn State or other universities with whom we could partner?

10:20 a.m.  —  Summaries of Breakout Sessions (5-15 minutes per group, depending on how many breakout groups are needed)

11:00 a.m.  —  Concluding Thoughts and Next Steps