Federal agencies invest billions annually in public safety research. The frameworks they fund — the National Incident Management System, the Emergency Management Assistance Compact, the COPS Hiring Program, the National Insider Threat Policy — are rigorously developed, peer-reviewed, and operationally tested. They are also, in every essential structural element, built for continental communities.
This is not a failure of the agencies that built them. It is a consequence of where the research was conducted, where the pilot programs ran, and where the data was collected. The United States has 48 contiguous states sharing land borders and mutual aid infrastructure. It has two island states, fourteen overseas territories, and three freely associated compact nations. The frameworks reflect where the policy attention went.
The gap this creates is consequential. When the National Incident Management System prescribes scalable mutual aid as its foundational response mechanism, it describes a capability that is structurally unavailable to Hawaii, Guam, American Samoa, the U.S. Virgin Islands, and the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands. When the DHS Insider Threat Mitigation Program recommends anonymous tip lines and segregated access administration, it describes organizational infrastructure that small Pacific Island government agencies — operating with fewer staff than a mid-size county department — cannot replicate.
DHS, DOJ, and FEMA program officers who commission ISPI research are not acknowledging a failure in their agency's frameworks. They are acknowledging a gap in the research base that those frameworks were built from — and they are commissioning the island-specific adaptation research that closes it.
What federal agencies commission from ISPI
ISPI's federal commission engagements fall into three categories. Assessment reports examine whether a specific federal program, framework, or grant allocation mechanism is producing intended outcomes in island and coastal-state contexts — and what adaptations would improve performance. Research reports develop the original evidence base for island-specific policy frameworks across ISPI's seven research domains. Training curriculum development translates ISPI's practitioner research into operational training programs calibrated for island law enforcement and emergency management environments.
ISPI is registered on SAM.gov under NAICS 541720 — Research and Development in the Social Sciences — and is eligible for DHS, DOJ, and FEMA contract vehicles. Federal agencies with island and coastal-state program responsibilities are invited to contact ISPI directly to discuss commissioned research engagements.
The most immediate federal commission opportunities ISPI is positioned for include DHS Homeland Security Grant Program allocation research for Pacific territories, DOJ COPS workforce development research for island law enforcement agencies, FEMA emergency management framework adaptation for non-continental jurisdictions, and State Department INL law enforcement capacity building research for Pacific Island partner nations.
To discuss a federal research commission, contact ISPI at ISPIGlobal@proton.me or visit the commission page.