Project Responder: Requirements for Homeland security technologies

This paper reports the results of Project Responder, an intensive research effort that describes the capability needs of the emergency response community. The project involved interviews, workshops, and case analyses conducted over eight years. Responders from multiple disciplines, small and large agencies, all levels of government, both the public and nonprofit sectors, and across different geographic regions of the United States were represented throughout. A recent phase of this project, funded by the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), sought to identify how the threat environment has evolved in light of recent large-scale disasters and incidents; to evaluate how response missions have changed as a result of a reinvigorated focus on all-hazards awareness and advances in DHS doctrine, policy, and technology development; and to identify the current capability priorities of the emergency response community. Thus, this paper reveals top-level capability requirements as articulated by the emergency response community.