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Army Research Office-Wide Crosscutting Recommendations
Based on the 2018-2020 reviews whose assessment is summarized in this report, the Army Research Technical Assessment Board (ARLTAB) offers the following Army Research Office (ARO)-wide crosscutting recommendations.
In general, the research strategy within ARO directorates seems to be principally a bottom-up one, where the program managers (PMs) have primary discretion and authority regarding project selection and funding decisions. The PMs are all well qualified for their positions. The directorates’ strategy seems to be to pose bold scientific questions, to seek collaborations, to engage with the Army laboratories for transitioning the research, to seek out high-risk, high-reward opportunities, to venture into new areas with long-term impact on enhancing Army capabilities, and to hire and retain excellent workforce. All of these items are meritorious. This strategy includes “casting a wide net,” even though funding levels are relatively small compared to peer organizations such as DOE, NSF, AFOSR, ONR, and so on. By having the PMs follow both the respective directorate program planning (Topic Formation: Scientific Opportunity/Army Impact) and respective division strategy, transitions to the Army could be enhanced. Because the ARO investment is relatively small and the opportunities are large, focusing the research topics could possibly result in more benefit to the Army through transitions without loss of scientific excellence.
ARO Crosscutting Recommendation 1: The Army Research Office (ARO) program managers (PMs) should be encouraged to prioritize directorate and division strategy with respect to focusing project selection by further improving the connection of scientific discovery to Army transitions.
Overall, ARO is conducting very high-quality research. The programs are driven, in an entrepreneurial manner, by well-qualified individual PMs who can take their programs in different directions without significant bureaucracy. However, these individual PMs need strategic positioning and appropriate incentives to coherently drive their programs for maximum transitions to the Army. The quality of programs reviewed was high, but had limited initiatives aimed at new research directions and pursuing high-risk and high-reward projects that could lead to discovery and inventions of greater scientific significance.
ARO Crosscutting Recommendation 2: The Army Research Office (ARO) should expand on new research directions and high-risk, high-reward projects that could lead to discovery and inventions of greater scientific significance.
Advances in the fields increasingly rely on contributions made by scientists who have different areas of expertise. For example, in chemistry, combined efforts in modeling and experiment are often essential for significant advances. Similarly, progress in condensed matter physics often depends on collaborations between individuals skilled in materials synthesis and scientists pursuing new phenomena. In addition, all
the physical sciences are increasingly relying on data analytics. The PSD currently has some selected examples where funding of pairs of researchers from different disciplines, working synergistically, has led to significant success. Priority could go to those who have a demonstrated history of successful collaborations. PMs could set priorities in terms of desired outcome and let researchers get together to make proposals.
ARO Crosscutting Recommendation 3: The Army Research Office (ARO) should encourage the funding of pairs of principal investigators (PIs) from different disciplines who will work together on common problems, including those that are interdivisional and interdirectorate. For example, for the Physics Division, ARO should encourage the funding of collaborative projects that involve both materials synthesis and condensed matter physics, as well as joint quantum information algorithms and information sciences projects, which would all be interdirectorate; for the Chemical Sciences Division, ARO should consider modeling and experiment, which are both within the division; and for the Life Sciences Division, ARO should consider mechanisms to improve data analytics to inform its explanatory models, which is also interdirectorate.
The PMs within ARO currently do a good job of going to conferences and staying abreast of the exciting new work within their fields. They also do well in advertising their programs and interests to their own communities at such conferences. However, this highly targeted approach to publicizing the activities of ARO means that many members of the broader scientific community are unaware that ARO is a potential source of funding. That means that ARO is not seeing all the proposals from new PIs with different perspectives that it might. This limitation is of particular importance when it comes to attracting researchers in biology and other life science disciplines because a life scientist is very unlikely to think that an organization called Physical Sciences Directorate would be interested in what he or she does.
ARO Crosscutting Recommendation 4: The Army Research Office (ARO) should find ways to further disseminate its funding opportunities to the broader community. For example, the Physical Sciences Directorate should find ways to reach the broader biology and life sciences community, which is unlikely to be recognized as an opportunity given its Physical Sciences name.
Diversity of gender, age, and geographic location was acknowledged across the ARO as requiring attention. Efforts to promote improved collaboration across ARO divisions and scientific disciplines would be beneficial. Program managers have the ability to encourage female and minority researchers to submit white papers and follow up with complete proposals, and there is need for an analysis and tracking of demographic diversity across ARO. In addition to technical diversification or collaboration between projects, some portfolios would also benefit from increased diversity of research PIs to include early-career PIs and less long-term continued funding provided to late-career PIs.
ARO Crosscutting Recommendation 5: To increase diversity within the Army Research Office (ARO) and the programs it supports, ARO should carry out a detailed assessment of the diversity of participants, both within ARO itself and in the programs that ARO supports. ARO should then establish a clear diversity policy and plan and should measure its progress against this plan.
