Executive Summary
Incidents do not respect jurisdictional or organizational lines, making regional partnerships a key contributor to critical infrastructure security and resilience at the local, regional, and national levels. The National Infrastructure Protection Plan 2013: Partnering for Critical Infrastructure Security and Resilience (NIPP 2013) recognizes the important role of regional partnerships in partner collaboration, information sharing, education and awareness, and emergency response across sectors and jurisdictions. NIPP 2013 specifically calls out the Regional Consortium Coordinating Council (RC3) as a partner in executing these objectives by leveraging regional collaboration to strengthen critical infrastructure security and resilience.
RC3 member organizations represent a wide range of regions, from metropolitan areas to broad multistate collaborations. The Member Organization Snapshot in the study provides a summary of factors, including organizational structures, funding sources, primary activities, and sectors of focus. Because of the regions’ unique characteristics and the diverse makeup of the stakeholders, each organization identifies and addresses threats and hazards in a variety of ways depending on its level of resources, the scope of its network of partners, and the scale of the potential threat. The RC3 is able to connect these organizations by fostering information sharing, hosting educational opportunities, conducting exercises, identifying best practices, and developing communication and collaboration strategies.
Study Purpose and Design
Through open-source research and interviews with executive directors and leaders of RC3 member organizations (as of October 2013), this Member and Mission Landscape Study examined five key areas: the value the RC3 provides its membership, the composition and reach of RC3’s member organizations, member organization missions, critical infrastructure security and resilience activities, and member challenges and requirements for continued partnership sustainment. By understanding these critical components of regional partnerships, RC3 and the U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) Office of Infrastructure Protection (IP) can evaluate the applicability and delivery of tools and services to partnerships.
Regional Consortium Coordinating Council (RC3) 