The Operational Sciences Institute (OSI) is a non-profit, non-partisan and ethically driven training, education and research resource. We serve public safety, criminal justice, military, intelligence, and private sector communities in the United States. The Institute’s projects bring the worlds of service and science together—the service of those who keep our nation safe across a multitude of sectors and the science of those who study human behavior. Our main area of focus is the study and advancement of science-based interview techniques. While originally borne out of a need to develop innovative and effective tools for the intelligence community, warfighters, and law enforcement, these techniques and strategies can be used in any endeavor, public or private, in which there is a need or desire to seek the truth and conduct effective interviews. Every person on our team and in our network has a passion for the drivers of the work we do – safety and security, intelligence, science, professionalism and a desire for excellence. We all came together through roads paved by the work done before OSI was created – the research done by the science community around the globe to identify the interview methods that work the best; the entities such as the High-Value Detainee Interrogation Group (HIG), created by the U.S. government to support and sustain this work and apply it in the field against high-value terrorism targets; and the law enforcement agencies that have received HIG-sponsored training in these techniques for the past several years and contributed to the HIG’s research validation studies. As instructors, students, curriculum designers and program managers, we have formed a team that seeks to both honor the work that came before and identify and execute on the work ahead.
