The October 2009 USMA Network Science Workshop will explore Network Science as an interdisciplinary endeavor involving a number of traditional disciplines. Over the past decade, the concept of net-enabled operations has become a cornerstone for our national defense efforts to “ride the wave” of the ongoing information systems revolution. However, National Academy studies have repeatedly identified scientific shortfalls in achieving net-centric operations. The organizing committee hopes that each attendee will contribute to the continuing definition of the field of network science and the formation of a network science community of interest!

The Network Science Workshop will be conducted in conjunction with the Tactical Ground Reporting (TIGR) Users Workshop to be held 26-28 October. Both workshops are sponsored by the Command & Control Directorate of the US Army Communications-Electronics Research Development and Engineering Center (CERDEC C2D). We have structured the two workshops to transition from a focus on soldier use of TIGR in field environments during the first two days of the TIGR Users Workshop to discussions of scientific shortfalls in enabling Army exploitation of technical advances over the last two days of the Network Science Workshop. The two workshops will have joint activities on Wednesday, 28 October.

The focus of the workshop is to explore interdisciplinary approaches to network science that may transform military applications. In that regard, the theme of the Network Science Workshop is to discuss scientific and engineering approaches for "Understanding Cyber Terrorism" where cyber terrorism is more than efforts to disrupt information assurance. Cyber terrorism includes deliberate efforts to degrade or disrupt social networks, communications networks and information networks needed for normal operation of national and international critical infrastructures. In order to fight cyber terrorism we need to advance the science of networks to understand cultural, social, and economic network dynamics as well as communication and information networks and how civil-military operations affect the future state of the complex-event system comprising these interconnected and interdependent networks. We will schedule plenary discussions at the conclusion of the workshop in a panel session to let the attendees discuss how well we met the intent!