Media Releases

Munk School announces appointment of the Canada Centre for Global Security Studies Director

October 7, 2010

TORONTO, ON – Today, Jan­ice Stein, Direc­tor of the Munk School of Glob­al Affairs (Munk School) announced the appoint­ment of Pro­fes­sor Ron Deib­ert as the Direc­tor of the Cana­da Cen­tre for Secu­ri­ty Stud­ies (Cana­da Cen­tre). Deib­ert pre­vi­ous­ly served as the Direc­tor of the Cit­i­zen Lab, an inter­dis­ci­pli­nary lab­o­ra­to­ry based at the Munk School focus­ing on advanced research and devel­op­ment at the inter­sec­tion of dig­i­tal media, glob­al secu­ri­ty and human rights.

“The Munk School is proud to announce that Ron Deib­ert will lead the new­ly formed Cana­da Cen­tre for Glob­al Secu­ri­ty Stud­ies, the first Cana­da brand­ed cen­tre at the Uni­ver­si­ty of Toron­to, as its inau­gur­al Direc­tor,” stat­ed Stein. “This appoint­ment is a clear sig­nal that the Cana­da Cen­tre will bring an entre­pre­neur­ial and inter­dis­ci­pli­nary approach to the study of secu­ri­ty issues fac­ing not only Cana­da and our tra­di­tion­al allies, but also con­tem­po­rary threats which coun­tries, cor­po­ra­tions and cit­i­zens cope with around the globe on a dai­ly basis.”

Pro­fes­sor Deib­ert will con­tin­ue to head the Cit­i­zen Lab while pro­vid­ing lead­er­ship to the oth­er ini­tia­tives housed at the Cana­da Cen­tre includ­ing activ­i­ties focus­ing on: cyber­se­cu­ri­ty, arc­tic secu­ri­ty, and region­al (Asia/Europe/Americas) ini­tia­tives on glob­al secu­ri­ty.

“Our aim for the Cana­da Cen­tre is to grap­ple with com­plex glob­al secu­ri­ty issues in inno­v­a­tive ways that help gen­er­ate big ideas and new solu­tions,” added Pro­fes­sor Deib­ert. “We intend to do so by build­ing upon the mod­el of the Cit­i­zen Lab, whose suc­cess is derived from inter­dis­ci­pli­nary research and part­ner­ships with the pri­vate sec­tor, gov­ern­ment, and civ­il soci­ety.”

The Cit­i­zen Lab received world­wide media atten­tion for two major inves­ti­ga­tions into glob­al cyber espi­onage: Track­ing Ghost­net and Shad­ows in the Cloud.  The inves­ti­ga­tions were car­ried out in part­ner­ship with the SecDev Group, a pri­vate sec­tor think tank based in Ottawa with which the Cit­i­zen Lab col­lab­o­rates on a wide range of research activ­i­ties.  The Cit­i­zen Lab was an incu­ba­tor for an Inter­net free­dom tech­nol­o­gy project, called Psiphon, which has now become a pri­vate Cana­di­an com­pa­ny with annu­al rev­enues of $1.65- mil­lion.  The Lab has also been instru­men­tal in rais­ing aware­ness about Inter­net cen­sor­ship world­wide, and has worked with tech com­pa­nies, like Google, to become more trans­par­ent.

The cre­ation of the Cana­da Cen­tre was made pos­si­ble through a $25-mil­lion grant by the Gov­ern­ment of Cana­da which was announced by Prime Min­is­ter Stephen Harp­er in April, 2010.

“As our economies, civ­il soci­eties and insti­tu­tions become more glob­al in nature so too are the threats that can inter­rupt such progress.  The Cana­da Cen­tre, its aca­d­e­mics, researchers and stu­dents, led by Ron Deib­ert, will be an essen­tial meet­ing point where we can gain a bet­ter under­stand­ing of these glob­al threats and devel­op effec­tive respons­es,” con­clud­ed Stein.

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For more infor­ma­tion, please con­tact:
Neil Desai – Direc­tor, Pro­grams and Com­mu­ni­ca­tions
Munk School of Glob­al Affairs
416.946.5118
n.desai@utoronto.ca

For Ron Deib­ert’s bio click here

For more about the Cit­i­zen Lab click here

For the Gov­ern­ment of Canada’s press release announc­ing fund­ing for the Cana­da Cen­tre click here