Organization and Management of 

 Scientific Activities 



At DARPA, the research program is managed 

 in the same way as and by the same people who 

 supervise complementary development programs. 

 This is perhaps more appropriate at DARPA than 

 elsewhere since the developmental programs are 

 often very high risk and at the leading edge of 

 technology. While they may be initiated and ter- 

 minated in principle as rapidly as developmental 

 projects, in practice the type of work involved 

 often dictates a longer time scale. The apportion- 

 ment of funds between research and development 

 is done on a yearly basis as authorized by Con- 

 gress. This assures the overall stability of fund- 

 ing, but there is considerable freedom for alloca- 

 tion among the individual contracts. 



DARPA is a small organization and its projects 

 tend to be fewer and larger than those of the mili- 

 tary service research offices. Further, DARPA 

 does not have its own procurement organization, 

 and all procurements take place through service 

 agents. This provides additional monitoring and 

 coupling as well as alternative paths to DARPA 

 funding. 



DARPA was established in 1958. There have 

 been some major programmatic changes in that 

 time. For instance, initially it was primarily di- 

 rected toward space research, which has since 

 been taken up by the Air Force and NASA. A 

 large portion of its effort in the early years was 

 toward the defender antiballistic missile program, 

 which was transferred to the Army. This has 

 caused major reorientations i<i the type of re- 

 search being sponsored, but not in the methods 

 used. 



Because research is handled in the same fash- 

 ion as development, there are no inherent alloca- 

 tions by contractor type. However, because of 

 the work being done, often 40 percent to 80 per- 

 cent of the funding goes to universities in a parti- 

 cular project, although industrial firms are playing 

 an ever-increasing role. 



In the past, there was a greater willingness to 

 establish kirge research projects or institutes with 

 a fair degree of internal management freedom. As 

 a result of a number of independent decisions, 

 these efforts have almost entirely vanished, bring- 

 ing the management of research much more in 

 line with that of development projects. 



There is no explicit policy for external review 

 committees, although DARPA participates in a 

 number of Department-wide review and coordina- 

 tion programs such as the Advisory Group on 

 Electron Devices. 



There are no explicit regulations or policies that 

 affect DARPA's research program more than any 

 other activity (with the possible exception of the 

 additional paperwork generated by queries and 

 statistical analysis within the Federal research 

 establishment). 



Security classification is not a problem since all 

 university research is unclassified. 



Useful interagency consultation coordination 

 takes place primarily on a case-by-case basis. 

 Several standing committees also exist with which 

 DARPA cooperates in its particular research 

 areas. 



DARPA has served as lead agency in a number 

 of research and developmental projects. Because 

 of the nature of its work, it is much less likely to 

 have occasion to use another lead agency. 



There are no restrictions on the dissemination 

 of scientific information resulting from DARPA 

 research. 



DARPA has had occasion to support contracts 

 in foreign countries, but these are often the result 

 of joint cooperative programs and intergovern- 

 mental agreements. They make use of unique fa- 

 cilities or geography and are usually develop- 

 mental — not fundamental — research. Cooperative 

 programs with developing countries involving 

 long-term cooperation and on-site emplacement of 

 equipment appear to be suffering more and more 

 from a lack of political stability in those coun- 

 tries, which leads to great uncertainty and very 

 long negotiation times. 



87 



