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In addition to PACER, there are seven other Homeland Security Centers of Excellence. The centers are authorized by Congress and chosen by the Department's Science & Technology Directorate through a competitive selection process. Each center is led by a university in collaboration with partners from other institutions, agencies, laboratories, think tanks, and the private sector.

• The Center for Risk and Economic Analysis of Terrorism Events (CREATE), led by the University of Southern California, evaluates the risks, costs, and consequences of terrorism, and guides economically viable investments in countermeasures that will make our Nation safer and more secure.
• The National Center for Food Protection and Defense (NCFPD), led by the University of Minnesota, defends the safety of the food system from pre-farm inputs through consumption by establishing best practices, developing new tools, and attracting new researchers to prevent, manage, and respond to food contamination events.
• The National Center for Foreign Animal and Zoonotic Disease Defense (FAZD), led by Texas A&M University, protects against the introduction of high-consequence foreign animal and zoonotic diseases into the United States, with an emphasis on prevention, surveillance, intervention, and recovery.
• The National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START), led by the University of Maryland, informs decisions on how to disrupt terrorists and terrorist groups, while strengthening the resilience of U.S. citizens to terrorist attacks.
• The Center for Advancing Microbial Risk Assessment (CAMRA), led by Michigan State University and established jointly with the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency, fills critical gaps in risk assessments for decontaminating microbiological threats—such as plague and anthrax—answering the question, "How Clean is Safe?"
• The University Affiliate Centers to the Institute for Discrete Sciences (IDS-UACs) are led by Rutgers University, the University of Southern California, the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, and the University of Pittsburgh. They collaborate with IDS, based at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory, to conduct research on advanced methods for information analysis and the development of computational technologies to protect the Nation.
• The Regional Visualization and Analytics Centers (RVACs) are led by Penn State University, Purdue University, Stanford University, the University of North Carolina at Charlotte, and the University of Washington. They collaborate with the National Visualization and Analytics Center, based at Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, to conduct research on visually-based analytic techniques that help people gain insight from complex, conflicting, and changing information.