N.S.S.C Profile
National security is the single most important challenge facing the State of Israel, which has had to contend with existential threats ever since its establishment in 1948. The University of Haifa and its National Security Studies Center have been involved in formulating the concepts of national security and in educating the senior and top echelons of its officials for almost two decades.
The Center is an independent, scholarly and academic body, which is run by the University, free of strings that might hinder its academic freedom. Yet it is consciously seeking a synthesis between pure academic research on the one hand, and policy-relevant study of national security issues on the other, to the mutual benefit of both communities.
The Center is interdisciplinary in character, and it seeks to present a balanced, coherent, comprehensive, and integrated picture of national security in the modern and broad sense of the term, involving the central disciplines of the contemporary social sciences, as well as history, ethics and technology.

Research
The Center has generated a large body of research which is relevant to the facets of its work in the study of such subjects as patterns of terrorism in Israel, the interface of society and security as reflected in the military reserve system in the country, and the tension between security needs on the one hand, and democratic values of an open society, on the other.
In the approximately half decade of its existence, the Center has acquired a well-deserved reputation as one of the leading institutes of its kind in the country, and it has also become known and appreciated in several major countries abroad.
The findings of the Center have been received with great interest around the world, and scholars and policymakers from many countries have responded to its research and publications. Foreign contacts and visitors have facilitated the Center's involvement with defense establishments and relevant academic institutions in such countries as the United States, Canada, Hungary, Poland, Turkey, India, Russia, the Philippines, Sri Lanka, Ghana and South Africa, and the list is constantly on the increase.
In Israel, the Center has made a major contribution to the ongoing debate on national security matters, providing for a better-informed and more fact-based discourse, and more oriented towards serious and analytical academic thinking. The Center has become the leading institution in Israel in the study of national resilience and social strength in the face of the challenges of terrorism. It has become a pioneer in developing theoretical and analytical frameworks for a better understanding of the relationship between democracy and security.
In light of that successful experience, the Center is now the senior partner in an international, cooperative academic venture, which is about to produce a major scholarly journal entitled DEMOCRACY AND SECURITY, to be published in London. Researchers of the Center have taken an active part in developing a wide-ranging international project for the study of post-traumatic stress in the wake of terrorism. This project, based on the insights of modern psychology, is now being considered for funding by the most prominent and relevant research foundations in the United States.

National Security Studies Center Website