Oak Ridge, McCrary Institute Establish Cybersecurity Center Focused on Electrical Grid

Auburn University’s McCrary Institute, in partnership with Oak Ridge National Laboratory, received a $10 million Department of Energy grant (with $2.5 million in additional support) to launch the Southeast Region Cybersecurity Collaboration Center (SERC3), focused on protecting the U.S. electrical grid. The initiative will establish research labs, a mock utility command center for real-time defense training, and cross-sector collaboration among government, academia, and industry to advance cyber risk quantification, modernization, and workforce development—especially against nation-state threats targeting critical infrastructure.