Risk assessment methodology applied to counter IED research & development portfolio prioritization

In an effort to protect the United States from the ever increasing threat of domestic terrorism, the Department of Homeland Security, Science and Technology Directorate (DHS S&T), has significantly increased research activities to counter the terrorist use of explosives. More over, DHS S&T has established a robust Counter-Improvised Explosive Device (C-IED) Program to Deter, Predict, Detect, Defeat, and Mitigate this imminent threat to the Homeland. The DHS S&T portfolio is complicated and changing. In order to provide the ''best answer'' for the available resources, DHS S&T would like some ''risk based'' process for making funding decisions. There is a definite need for a methodology to compare very different types of technologies on a common basis. A methodology was developed that allows users to evaluate a new ''quad chart'' and rank it, compared to all other quad charts across S&T divisions. It couples a logic model with an evidential reasoning model using an Excel spreadsheet containing weights of the subjective merits of different technologies. The methodology produces an Excel spreadsheet containing the aggregate rankings of the different technologies. It uses Extensible Logic Modeling (ELM) for logic models combined with LANL software called INFTree for evidential reasoning.