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Corinne Day, Media Relations Manager, R Street Institute
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WASHINGTON (Feb. 22, 2021)—The R Street Institute is excited to announce the launch of a new project: The Secure and Competitive Markets Initiative (SCMI). Led by R Street’s Cybersecurity and Emerging Threats team, the effort is composed of experts from the fields of cybersecurity, national security, economics and supply chain.

The aim of the SCMI is to recommend a cohesive national strategy for securing the information communications technology (ICT) supply chain. The strategy will balance the considerations of both the American free market economy and national security, and take into full account the challenges and necessity of working with allies and private industry in the immediate future and in the long term.

This work will build off the recommendations recently developed by the Cyberspace Solarium Commission and will provide thought-leadership and research for the ongoing efforts within the White House and other government agencies charged with determining the direction of future U.S.-China competition in the ICT space.

“Our goal is to bring leading experts and their recommendations together and develop one cohesive strategy. While one of our institutions could tackle some of the challenges, no singular institution could take on this huge problem alone. We are stronger together,” said Tatyana Bolton, R Street director of cybersecurity and emerging threats.

The SCMI is committed to the following key principles to guide its strategy:

  1. Security and Resilience as a Mindset
  2. Competitive and Free Markets
  3. International Partnerships and Engagement
  4. Transparency, Accountability and Privacy
  5. Access and Equity
  6. Public/Private Partnerships

The SCMI working groups will focus in particular on the United States’ critical dependencies, the state of high-tech manufacturing, and the need to make international partnerships integral—rather than ancillary—to the final strategy. This effort to secure America’s ICT supply chain will be nested in an overarching strategy for great power competition with China.

Coalition members include:

*Several institutions pending final confirmation; list of institutional and individual members to be listed in full in the upcoming weeks.

For more information on SCMI’s work and members of the coalition, please visit our website: https://www.secureandcompetitivemarkets.com/

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