The Commonwealth Cyber Initiative (CCI) was established under the enabling authority of the Appropriation Act - Item 252.B7, Special Session I, 2018. Our objective is “to serve as an engine for research, innovation, and commercialization of cybersecurity technologies, and to address the commonwealth’s need for growth of advanced and professional degrees within the cyber workforce" (Virginia State Budget, 2018).

Our ambitious vision is to establish Virginia as a global leader in cybersecurity and, by doing so, help diversify the economy of the commonwealth, attracting investment and jobs.

CCI remains unique in the nation by bringing together 47 higher education institutions with a common vision, articulated above, and a mission of research, innovation, and workforce development in cybersecurity. CCI also represents a unique example in the commonwealth of how inter-university collaboration can bring about an extremely robust return on investment, reflected in job creation, a significant increase in extramural research funding, the health of the cybersecurity startup system, and the ability to attract and retain talent. This report summarizes some of our key achievements in Fiscal Year 2026 (FY26).

Impact on the Commonwealth. In six years of operation, CCI is recognized as a model for how statewide collaboration between higher education, the private sector, and government can result in economic impact for all. Even in a challenging research funding environment, our cybersecurity programs and research continue to thrive. In FY26 our researchers have attracted $49.2 million dollars in new research grants and contracts. This success is a testament to the centrality of cybersecurity to national security and economic development, to the depth of research talent in Virginia, and to the strength of our multi-institution, transdisciplinary research teams. This year, 3,700 students participated in CCI workforce development programs designed to provide experiential learning and increase career preparedness. To date, we have launched 16 spinouts in Virginia. In 2025, Virginia startups attracted $2.9 billion in venture capital, a record, and an estimated 27% of venture capital for the commonwealth is aligned with cybersecurity. CCI’s three mission lines continue to bring outstanding impact and return on the investment made by the commonwealth.

From Discovery to Impact. We continue to contribute to the success of the Virginia cyber startup ecosystem and to launch new companies. To this end, CCI operates two funds: Cyber Acceleration, Translation, and Advanced Prototyping for University-Linked Technology (CATAPULT) propels inventions from academic laboratories to commercialization through the formation of new companies and licensing of intellectual property; and Academic Support for Cybersecurity Entrepreneurship (ASCEND) strengthens Virginia startups by partnering them with our cybersecurity experts. In FY26, with combined funding from the CCI Hub and the Northern Virginia (NoVA) Node, we funded seven new teams in CATAPULT and six existing startups through ASCEND. CCI Nodes also run innovation programs targeting institutions in each geographic region, such as the Ideation to Commercialization program in Southwest Virginia (SWVA), Innovate Cyber Challenge in Coastal Virginia (CoVA), and the Project CYPHER-Bridge in Central Virginia (CVN). This year, we also partnered with Blu Ventures to help support its annual Cyber Ventures Forum. CCI’s 16 spinouts, with founders from our network’s faculty and students and receiving early support from CCI, hold 15 patents that form the intellectual property for their services and products.

Developing Cyber Talent. With an estimated 54,000 job openings in cybersecurity, and 112,000 professionals working in this field, Virginia continues to show extremely strong demand for cyber talent. Paradoxically, new graduates report finding it challenging to break into this job market. CCI’s strategy is to provide students with experiential learning and career development opportunities, addressing the fact that even entry-level cybersecurity jobs expect some amount of work experience. In FY26, 3,700 students went through our programs. One example is Radford’s Professional Accelerated Cyber Education (PACE) program, offering competency-based training for professionals across Virginia, which had 62 participants its first year. The team at Radford that designed and runs the program was recognized by our Technical Advisory Board with the CCI Impact Award 2026. Our project-based learning program, offering students micro-internships, continues to attract industry partners, including Microsoft, PBS, CACI, Guidepoint Security, and LMI. Through our Cyber As A Service program, more than 70 students have provided cybersecurity assessment and readiness services to small businesses in their communities. The number of internships curated (and sometimes subsidized) by CCI continues to grow. And the CCI NoVA Node’s partnership with local high schools to provide internships to rising high school seniors and to recent high school graduates pursuing cybersecurity-related degrees is proving extremely popular.

Seeding External Research Funding. CCI’s seed grant programs show an estimated 7-to-1 return on investment: for each $1 in seed funding, our researchers are able to attract $7 in funding from sources outside the commonwealth. Seed grants are particularly impactful for junior faculty: in the last year, nine assistant professors supported by CCI, at William & Mary (W&M), the University of Virginia (UVA), Virginia Tech (VT), and George Mason University (Mason), have obtained prestigious CAREER awards from the National Science Foundation (NSF) in fields including computer science, physics, data science, and electrical and computer engineering. In FY26, CCI provided $1.9 million in seed funding to multi-university teams working on securing our critical infrastructure. The Nodes provide additional seed funding to build research capacity in their regions. These programs advance the state-of-the-art in securing energy systems, water facilities, industrial control systems, transportation, manufacturing, healthcare, and communication networks. They were selected based on their intellectual merit and potential for follow-up funding from federal agencies and/or the private sector.

Cybersecurity across Borders. Cybersecurity threats are borderless, and CCI’s vision is to establish Virginia as a global leader in this field. We continue to build tight collaborations with researchers and institutions in like-minded countries. Japan’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Communications (MIC) has funded us to advise them on the establishment of an academia-governmentindustry partnership in cybersecurity in Japan, inspired by the CCI model. We have active research projects with Finland, Ireland, UK, and Japan, co-funded by NSF and funding agencies in those countries. In April 2026, we convened science attach´es from 13 embassies to discuss potential collaborations with CCI. At that event, Virginia Economic Development Partnership (VEDP) talked about opportunities for international cyber companies seeking to establish a presence in Virginia. The SWVA Node of CCI organized a collaboration workshop in the Steger Center, in Switzerland, which concluded with a post-quantum cryptography event called Swissogeny Day, in partnership with IBM Zurich researchers. And this year, Luiz DaSilva chairs the board of the International Cybersecurity Center of Excellence (INCS-CoE), an organization bringing together universities from around the world to build partnerships in cybersecurity research and education.

Engaging with a Broad Array of Stakeholders. CCI engages with a broad array of stakeholders at the local, national, and international levels. We presented CCI in the annual meeting of RVA Connects, an organization with a mission of advancing economic prosperity and quality of life in the Richmond and Hampton Roads region. CCI was also featured in the annual summit of the Virginia Academy of Science, Engineering, and Medicine (VASEM), which this year focused on artificial intelligence. We led a fireside chat in the 2025 Times of Higher Education (THE) Innovation & Impact Summit, highlighting how CCI supports entrepreneurship in cybersecurity. These and numerous other engagements elevate Virginia’s profile, showcase our strengths, and attract talent and businesses to the commonwealth. This report details the many programs, industry engagements, research breakthroughs, student activities, and contributions that CCI has made in the past fiscal year. These programs are conceived and run by the dedicated staff and faculty in the CCI Hub and the CoVA, CVN, NoVA, and SWVA Nodes. And above all, the success of CCI is a result of the collaboration between more than 375 faculty members and thousands of students engaged in making Virginia a global leader in cybersecurity.