University of Ottawa Taps Network Contagion Research Institute, Rutgers Miller Center as Strategic Partners in Disinformation Lab

OTTAWA, Ontario, Feb. 18, 2022 /PRNewswire-PRWeb/ -- The Professional Development Institute (PDI) of the University of Ottawa, Canada, the largest bilingual (English/French) university in the world, today launched an Information Integrity Lab that includes the Network Contagion Research Institute (NCRI) and the Miller Center for Community Protection and Resilience at Rutgers University as key strategic partners. The Information Integrity Lab is designed to identify and research ways to sort through this new era of information disorder to help preserve peace and civility in Canada and around the globe.

"We are delighted to work with such influential thought leaders as the NCRI," says Serge Blais, Executive Director of the PDI. "NCRI jumped to the top of our partner wish list due to its combination of unmatched subject matter expertise and technical data ingestion capabilities. Taken together, these proficiencies will power one of the most dynamic learning environments on this subject anywhere in the world," Blais says.

A nonprofit, NCRI is at the forefront of cyber-social threat identification and forecasting. The institute conducts open-source data analysis to detect harmful social media activity and uses unique computational methods to forecast emerging threats. NCRI will provide key technological, methodological, and analytical support to the Lab. NCRI will also work with PDI to provide training/internship programs for cyber-social threat identification and forecasting. NCRI has a mandate to train the next generation to investigate emerging threats in open-source intelligence and deploy data-driven computational methods to forecast emerging threats and procure deeper online threat intelligence.

"NCRI is honored to join with the University of Ottawa as a central partner to help teach the next generation how cyber social, open-source data can help them confront new challenges that help keep communities healthy and safe," says NCRI CEO Adam Sohn.    

With disinformation being weaponized—disinformation-as-a-service is a thriving industry—by nation-states, political extremists, activists, and garden-variety criminals alike-- the Lab will leverage the expertise of NCRI and the Miller Center to focus on developing disinformation defenses, influencing policymaking, and building advanced tools to preserve the integrity of information. Four major outcomes will result from the new initiative: events to increase public awareness building thru public events, policy briefs and research papers on trends and patterns reports targeted to the disinformation concerns of particular organizations, and courses and training programs for capacity building and resilience.

Besides NCRI and the Rutgers Miller Center, the Lab assembles a prestigious network of leading institutions in the disinformation space, including FX Innovation, the Atlantic Council's Digital Forensic Research Lab, and the International Commission of Jurists, Canadian Section.

Media Contact

Alex Goldenberg, Network Contagion Research Institute, +1 7328227113, [email protected]

SOURCE Network Contagion Research Institute