A security research group is offering AUS$1000($1299) for the best short story outlining a future nightmare scenario for Australia's national security.

This mirrors a similar challenge launched by the US Army after the 9/11 terror attacks with top Hollywood action screenwriters and directors invited to come up with scenarios for future terrorist attacks on the US.

"The US military went down this path because there had been a failure of imagination by the national security community to conceive that an adversary could do something as radical as hijack and crash planes into buildings," said Athol Yates, executive director of the Australian Security Research Centre (ASRC).

Mr Yates said entrants needed to write a short story with a security scenario as the story plot line or as the essential backdrop.

It must have an Australian context and be set between now and 2020.

"While the story is to be fictional, it needs to be grounded in a plausible, coherent and detailed security situation," he said.

"Rather than just describing an avalanche of frightening events, writers are encouraged to focus on the consequences and challenges posed by their scenarios and tease out what the official and public responses would be. Such stories provide more useful insights for those planning to face security threats."

Mr Yates said there was a host of new threats to Australia, including pandemic outbreaks, global energy disruptions, food security shocks, civil society breakdown and transnational crime destabilising entire countries.

"Some would cause small scale disruption and deaths in Australia and others would cause catastrophic loss of life and possibly even the collapse of the nation," he said.

"The ASRC wants to foster imaginative thinking so as to ensure Australia is better prepared to deal with the varied threats facing our security."

Second prize will be AUS$500($649) and third prize AUS$300($389) and entries close on October 24.

- AAP