Advancing knowledge in contemporary threats to Australian security

The Contemporary Threats to Australian Security (CTAS) group is exploring diverse threats to Australian domestic, economic, and health security. This cross-disciplinary research group aims to expand knowledge on contemporary threats and challenges, and propose ethically sustainable legislative and policy responses to effectively counter them. We actively collaborate with discipline-adjacent experts and relevant industry stakeholders to inform and influence change. The group is led by Associate Proferssor Marcus Smith.

Our Research

CTAS researchers are actively engaged with three expanding projects.

Project 1 | Threats to Australian Domestic Security is currently examining the evolving threat posed by Right Wing Extremism.

Project 2 | Threats to Australian Economic Security is currently examining the evolving threat posed by Trade-Based Money Laundering.

Project 3 |  Building Better Health Security Warning Intelligence Post COVID-19

Project 4 |  Building Better Laws and Infrastructure for Genomic Data Security

Our teams include internationally and domestically recognised experts in the disciplines of criminology (FoR 44) and law (For 48) generally. These relate to the fields of terrorism and counter-terrorism, financial crime, federal criminal law, criminal justice, communications, international relations, political science, intelligence and national security, ethics, and customs and excise studies.

We aim to support Australian security through empirically grounded research, informing policy and practice, with the overall intent of safeguarding Australian communities from diverse threats.