Intel analysis

Are Our Intelligence Agencies Getting The Wrong Advice?

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering and Medicine was commissioned by the US Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI) to “explore opportunities for research from the [Social and Behavioral Sciences] disciplines to support the work of intelligence analysts and enhance national security … [and assist] in developing a 10-year agenda for SBS research with applications to intelligence analysis.”

The final report, titled “A Decadal Survey of the Social and Behavioral Sciences: A Research Agenda for Advancing Intelligence Analysis,” offers that “the primary function of the intelligence analyst is to make sense of information about the world, but the way analysts do that work will look profoundly different a decade from now. Technological changes will bring both new advances in conducting analysis and new risks related to technologically based activities and communications around the world. Because these changes are virtually inevitable, the Intelligence Community will need to make sustained collaboration with researchers in the social and behavioral sciences (SBS) a key priority if it is to adapt to these changes in the most productive ways.”