3

Department of Defense Investments in STEM Research at Institutions of Higher Education

Federal agencies fund the majority of research on science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) at institutions of higher education to advance the field of knowledge and bolster U.S. competitiveness on a rapidly changing global stage. In 2019, federal agencies supported more than 53 percent of higher education research and development (R&D) expenditures, with the Department of Health and Human Services and the Department of Defense (DoD) positioned as the top two sources of funding.¹ Each federal agency’s funding priorities are driven by its congressional mandate and departmental missions, and conform to unique budgetary systems, organizational structures, investment streams, and portfolios.

This chapter focuses on the scope and scale of DoD research funding, both broadly as well as funding to institutions of higher education, including targeted investments at Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCUs) and other minority institutions (MIs).

DEFENSE RESEARCH FUNDING AND THE STUDY SCOPE

The development of DoD’s annual budget is a multi-step process that culminates in the House and Senate Armed Services Committees providing authorization and the Defense Appropriations Subcommittees appropriating funds. DoD organizes its annual budget request and its financial programming and planning into five appropriation categories: operations and maintenance; procurement; research, development, test, and evaluation; military personnel; and military construction.

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¹ See https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf21313.

To advance scientific and technical knowledge and global superiority, DoD invests heavily in R&D, more than any other federal agency (CRS, 2020). In the base year for the committee’s study (fiscal year [FY] 2019), Congress appropriated approximately $95.9 billion for research, development, test, and evaluation (DoD, 2019a).

The research, development, test, and evaluation appropriations category is, in turn, composed of eight budget activities with corresponding numerical/budget activity identifiers (6.1 through 6.8) (CRS, 2020):

• Basic research (activity code: 6.1)
• Applied research (activity code: 6.2)
• Advanced technology development (activity code: 6.3)
• Advanced component development and prototypes (activity code: 6.4)
• System development and demonstration (activity code: 6.5)
• Research, development, test, and evaluation management support (activity code: 6.6)
• Operational systems development (activity code: 6.7)
• Software and digital technology pilot programs (activity code: 6.8)

Historically the combination of basic research, applied research, and advanced technology development (activity codes 6.1, 6.2, and 6.3) is referred to as science and technology (S&T) (CRS, 2020). As noted in Chapter 1, this study primarily focuses on S&T budget activities to improve the participation of covered institutions (HBCUs and MIs) in DoD research.

The size of DoD’s annual S&T account is relatively small in relation to its total research, development, test, and evaluation appropriation. For example, in FY 2019, S&T was more than $15 billion, which represented about 16 percent of the research, development, test, and evaluation total. To further parse the S&T account, basic research (6.1) was approximately $2.5 billion, applied research (6.2) was $6.0 billion, and advanced technology development (6.3) was $7.1 billion (DoD, 2020a). In 2020, the S&T budget increased to $16.1 billion, with basic research (6.1) at $2.6 billion, applied research (6.2) at $6.1 billion, and advanced technology development (6.3) at $7.4 billion (DoD, 2021a). Similar increases are seen in the 2021 S&T budget with an increase to $16.8 billion. Basic research (6.1) funding remained at $2.6 billion, applied research (6.2) increased to $6.4 billion, and advanced technology development (6.3) increased to $7.8 billion (DoD, 2021a) (see Figure 3-1).

Appropriated S&T funds are managed and executed by the Departments of the Army, Navy, and Air Force, and by several defense-wide program offices, including the Office of HBCU/MI Science Programs and other offices within the Office of the Secretary of Defense and defense agencies, such as the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Defense Threat Reduction Agency. Figure 3-2 provides an overview of the three military departments.

DoD S&T funds are principally invested in academia, industry, and government organizations (CRS, 2018). To the point of this study, academia receives about 58 percent of basic research (6.1) funding, 27 percent of applied research (6.2) funding, and 6 percent of advanced technology development (6.3) funding (NSF and NSB, 2021). In summary, when looking at the total research, development, test, and evaluation budget ($95.9 billion in FY 2019), it is clear that S&T is a very small and precious resource within the defense budget (Table 3-1). Basic research funding—the major opportunity for academic researchers—is even more limited, at only 0.4 percent of the DoD budget.

Congress has often increased funding for S&T activities, as evidenced in Table 3-2 comparing DoD’s initial budget request and enacted amounts for 2019 and 2020. However, funds have generally remained stable or have lost purchasing power over time. This is illustrated in a 2018 Congressional Research Service report that examined defense S&T funding from 1978 to 2017 (in constant dollars) (CRS, 2018). As illustrated in Figure 3-3, basic research funding largely remained flat during this period in terms of purchasing power.

TABLE 3-1 DoD Approximate Enacted Budgets for FY 2019 and FY 2020 ($B/%)

Note: RDT&E = research, development, test, and evaluation.

SOURCES: DoD (2019a, 2019b, 2020a).

TABLE 3-2 Requested versus Enacted Funding for DoD S&T Research, FY 2019 and FY 2020 ($B)

SOURCES: DoD (2019a; 2020a; 2021a).

S&T FUNDING PRIORITIES

Here we provide a brief overview of the S&T organization, policy, and the funding ecosystem. For a more detailed review of the S&T landscape, see CRS (2020, 2021).

DoD S&T Program Priorities

Within the overall DoD S&T program, priorities shift over time to account for the emergence of new technologies, perceived competitors’ technology

advances, and National Security Strategy priorities. The most recent National Security Strategy calls for building a more lethal force, partly by modernizing key capabilities: nuclear forces; space and cyberspace as warfighting domains; command, control, communications, computers and intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance; missile defense; joint lethality in contested environments; forward force maneuver and posture resilience; advanced autonomous systems including autonomy, artificial intelligence, and machine learning; and resilient and agile logistics (DoD, 2018a, b, c). The National Security Strategy does not list discrete technologies but implies a focus on technological advances to ensure modernization and on capabilities that are already in force or are contemplated. In 2021, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering listed the following modernization priorities: artificial intelligence, biotech, autonomy, cyber, directed energy, networked command and control, microelectronics, and quantum science.² The military departments and defense agencies also have technical area priorities.

What is not described in the National Security Strategy is the necessity to invest in the discovery-oriented S&T that will enable new priorities and new capabilities not yet envisioned (i.e., “DoD after next,” or a more holistic approach designed to reshape methods for the conduct of all future DoD operations). Then-director of the Office of Scientific Research and Development Vannevar Bush made this point as World War II waned: “Basic research leads to new knowledge. It provides scientific capital. It creates the fund from which the practical applications of knowledge must be drawn. New products and new processes do not appear full-grown. They are founded on new principles and new conceptions, which in turn are painstakingly developed by research in the purest realms of science” (Bush, 1945). Based on the funding profile outlined above, 2 percent of the total DoD research, development, test, and evaluation budget (basic research) is left with that task.

Another way to look at S&T priorities is to consider DoD’s responsibility to create, even invent, the technological future for national security. In 1996, Secretary of Defense William Perry stated that the S&T objective is “to develop options for future decisive military capabilities based on superior technology” (DoD, 1996). That can mean modernizing legacy or planned systems, bringing forth a new capability never envisioned in any national security planning (Global Positioning System, the laser, the internet, autonomous undersea vehicles, etc.), or just gaining new fundamental knowledge. One may even consider that proving a hypothesis is wrong, or not useful, is a fundamental benefit and priority of S&T, because discovering that an idea will not work later in the development or acquisition pipeline is far more expensive. A corollary driver is that DoD S&T decision makers must balance awareness of breaking technology in areas where it will not serve as the lead user (e.g., those with commercial applications such

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² See https://www.cto.mil/modernization-priorities/.

as computers or jet engines) and those areas where it must lead because industry will not (naval architecture and marine engineering, stealth, small arms, etc.).³

Perhaps as important as developing the technologies themselves, is that S&T, especially its basic and applied research categories, supports STEM graduate students and postdocs in academia (and some bench scientists and engineers in industry and government labs), as they are the nation’s and DoD’s future STEM workforce. The current National Security Strategy lists cultivation of talent as key and specifically cites the need to “emphasize new skills and complement our current workforce with . . . basic science researchers and engineers . . . expanding access to outside expertise and devising new public-private partnerships to work with . . . universities” (DoD, 2018a). To illustrate this potential, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research estimates that it funds approximately 1,200 grants each year,⁴ and the Office of Naval Research estimates that it supports around 2,200 principal investigators each year (Gaffney and Poe, 2021). Most principal investigators have two to four supported graduate students. Thus, Air Force and Navy research funding alone enables an estimated 6,800 STEM graduate students (a conservative estimate; most likely, it is many more) to become steeped in DoD-relevant R&D.

To address the study’s charge and examine DoD’s effectiveness in attracting and retaining talent from HBCU/MIs, the committee also requested information from military departments, defense agencies, and organizations throughout DoD to determine the number of students from HBCU/MIs who enter the DoD workforce. Of the organizations that responded, most stated that they did not collect these data. The Department of the Navy’s HBCU/MI program, for example, noted that it does not track researchers or principal investigators who enter the DoD workforce. The Air Force does not formally collect information on which principal investigators or students funded by the Air Force Office of Scientific Research are hired into DoD on a routine basis, but program officers will document this information if it is shared by the researchers they fund. The Air Force Research Laboratory Personnel Office, however, does collect information on where new hires received their undergraduate or graduate degrees. Between 2017 and 2020 the Air Force Research Laboratory hired 91 new employees with degrees from HBCU/MIs. It sponsored 29 fellowships and 188 internships in 2018 and 32 fellowships and 168 internships in 2019; however, the proportion of these that went to HBCU/MIs was unreported. In 2020, many of these activities were suspended due to COVID-19; however, the lab reported hiring 29 new employees from HBCU/MIs during this period.

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³ Reflections based on committee member expertise and experience in the U.S. Department of Defense.

⁴ See https://www.afrl.af.mil/AFOSR/#:~:text=As%20a%20vital%20component%20of,Force%20in%20relevant%20scientific%20areas.

National S&T Priorities

DoD is the largest funder of research, development, test, and evaluation among federal agencies but not the largest funder of S&T overall. DoD follows the Department of Health and Human Services, the National Aeronautics and Space Administration, and the Department of Energy in supporting basic and applied research (CRS, 2020). Yet, DoD, through its military departments and agencies, has a long history in S&T, starting with successful efforts in leveraging academic research in World War II and subsequently evolving into the Office of Naval Research (whose establishment preceded that of the National Science Foundation [NSF] by two years) (Sapolsky, 1990). Research offices were later created in the Army and Air Force, followed in 1958 by the DoD-wide Advanced Research Projects Agency (now the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency). DoD has also long recognized significant talent and a future national scientific workforce aware of, and interested in, national security challenges in U.S. universities. It should be noted, however, that this recognition has not been equitably distributed to HBCU/MIs (see Chapter 4 for a discussion on the long-term disparities in DoD funding and capacity-building at HBCU/MIs).

Beyond DoD, other federal mission agencies organized to address health, environment, commerce, space, agriculture, intelligence, transportation, and energy issues have engaged academia, industry, and government labs in research relevant to their discrete mission areas. As a non-mission agency, NSF is a bit different but equally important. Within broad goals, NSF encourages researchers to serve up ideas to be funded through a peer-review process. In sharp contrast, the mission agencies are more top down. They may use various peer-review mechanisms to judge their programs, but they solicit ideas in areas of potential mission interest and then select the best responses that have potential future alignment with mission needs. It is important for those seeking to serve as DoD S&T performers to consider the potential applicability of their research to future decisive military capabilities.

DOD S&T ORGANIZATION

The DoD S&T enterprise is organized into three main segments, with organizations that do the following:

• Set S&T policy
• Invest S&T funds through grants, contracts, and technology investment agreements (formerly known as “other transaction authority”)
• Perform S&T tasks internally on government budget and externally using grants, contracts, and other transaction authority

DoD S&T Policy-Setting

The Office of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering serves as primary advisor to the DoD leadership and synchronizes S&T efforts across DoD.⁵ This office can serve as an investor, creating and running programs, but those programs are principally executed through contracts and/or grants by the S&T investing arms of military departments (Army, Navy, and Air Force) and defense agencies (e.g., Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, Defense Threat Reduction Agency). Military departments and defense agencies also set policies and priorities within their scopes of interest. A relevant example is the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s HBCU/MI office, which runs an S&T program of nearly $50 million annually but executes that program through the military departments (DoD 2021b).⁶

DoD S&T Investing Offices

S&T investing offices, also called awarding agencies, are in the military departments and defense agencies, where each is organized differently. All utilize STEM-educated program officers to solicit and select projects to fund and have contracting authority to award funds to researchers in government, industry, and academia. Beyond that come the variations:

• In the Department of the Navy (for the U.S. Navy and U.S. Marine Corps), the Office of Naval Research, within the Office of the Secretary of the Navy, serves as both the Department of the Navy’s S&T policy and investing offices.⁷ This is the top level of administrative authority.
• In the Army, the Army Futures Command makes major S&T investment decisions, but the Army Assistant Secretary for Acquisition, Logistics, and Technology has a role, as does the Army Futures Command’s subordinate Development Command and its several laboratories/centers. The Army, therefore, has S&T policy and investment decision making at the 1st, 3rd, 4th, and 5th levels of authority. Extramural research funding for institutions of higher education is nearly exclusively managed by the Army Research Office, which is a direct reporting unit of the Army Research Laboratory.⁸
• In the Air Force, the Air Force Research Laboratory invests S&T funding; it is a 4th level office. Like the Army, the Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Research is involved in setting S&T policy/priorities.

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⁵ See https://www.cto.mil/about/#:~:text=ABOUT%20USD(R%26E)&text=As%20the%20CTO%2C%20the%20USD,the%20DOD%20and%20occurring%20internationally.

⁶ Due to the study’s FY 2009-2020 budgetary focus, the funding totals discussed in this report do not reflect more recent appropriations.

⁷ See https://www.onr.navy.mil/en/About-ONR.

⁸ See https://armyfuturescommand.com/.

• The Air Force Research Laboratory’s subordinate Air Force Office of Scientific Research is responsible for management of the Air Force’s basic research investment. It manages the extramural basic research program and coordinates with the Air Force Research Laboratory for intramural basic research investments.⁹
• Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency is a defense agency and an S&T investing office; it is directly subordinate to the Office of the Secretary of Defense.¹⁰
• Other organizations subordinate to the Office of the Secretary of Defense with S&T investing authority, albeit smaller than that of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, include the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the Missile Defense Agency, the Strategic Capabilities Office, and certain “technology incubator” offices. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Defense Threat Reduction Agency are the most significant investors in institutions of higher education.¹¹

The committee heard from representatives and/or reviewed materials from most of the investing offices listed above. In terms of study scope, the committee did not consider DoD S&T investments made in medical research as much of this research at HBCU/MIs is sponsored by the Department of Health and Human Services.

DoD S&T Performers

The third main segment in the S&T ecosystem are the researchers in academia, industry, and government organizations who perform the research or related activity. The DoD S&T investing offices use their budget allocation or contracting authority to transfer or award funding to the following types of S&T-performing organizations.

Government Organizations

These are principally within the military departments—for example, the Naval Research Laboratory, Army Research Laboratory, Air Force Research Laboratory, and dozens of other performing research, development, test, and evaluation centers and laboratories. These organizations may in turn subcontract with industry and academia, and they may partner with other government-performing research, development, test, and evaluation centers. Of note, two quasi-government organizations that are considered DoD distinct legal entities (university-affiliated

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⁹ See https://www.afrl.af.mil/AFOSR/; https://ww3.safaq.hq.af.mil/.

¹⁰ See https://sgp.fas.org/crs/natsec/R45088.pdf; https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/about-darpa.

¹¹ See https://www.cto.mil/leadership/; https://www.mda.mil/about/mission.html; https://www.dtra.mil/Mission/; https://www.mtsi-va.com/strategic-capabilities-office/.

research centers and federally funded research and development centers) receive funding directly from S&T investing offices; additionally, the Air Force supports centers of excellence.

University-Affiliated Research Centers

University-affiliated research centers are strategic DoD research centers, each associated with a university. The centers were developed to ensure that essential engineering and technology capabilities, specifically identified and of particular importance to DoD, are maintained. They enjoy sole source funding under the authority of 10 U.S.C. § 2304(c)(3)(B).¹² They also are allowed to compete for other S&T work, except when prohibited by their contracts. There are 14 university-affiliated research centers.

Federally Funded Research and Development Centers

Federally funded research and development centers are owned by the federal government but operated by contractors, including universities, other nonprofit organizations, and private industry. The centers are intended to provide federal agencies with R&D capabilities that cannot be effectively met by the federal government or the private sector alone. They enjoy sole source funding under the authority of 10 U.S.C. § 2304(c)(3)(B). Unlike university-affiliated research centers, they are not allowed to compete for contracts. There are 10 defense federally funded research and development centers.

U.S. Air Force Centers of Excellence

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research’s Operating Instruction 61-8 covers centers of excellence as joint efforts among the Air Force Office of Scientific Research, other technology directorates of this office, and a university (or university team) chosen competitively to perform high-priority collaborative research. The office typically sponsors one or two new centers of excellence per year. (These centers of excellence are distinct from the Office of the Secretary of Defense HBCU/MI Science Program’s centers of excellence that are administered and awarded through the Army Research Laboratory and will be discussed in later chapters.)

Industry

Industry participates in DoD S&T through contracts with military department and defense agency research organizations. Private companies also invest in

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¹² See https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCODE-2011-title10/USCODE-2011-title10-subtitleA-partIV-chap137-sec2304.

their own internal R&D programs in strategic areas that will make them competitive for future DoD R&D funding or support their competitiveness for military equipment acquisition programs. They coordinate their internal R&D programs to be in line with government policy priorities or current government contract sponsor needs.

Institutions of Higher Education and Other Nonprofit Research Organizations

Institutions of higher education and other nonprofit research organizations perform research in a way similar to industry, as discussed throughout this report. Certain institutions, predominately non-HBCU/MIs, may maintain DoD “distinct legal entities” such as university-affiliated research centers. The presence and/or connection to a DoD legal entity may provide a competitive advantage to these institutions of higher education by increasing access to funding opportunities and increasing their ability to develop R&D capacity and infrastructure. See Box 3-1 and Chapter 4 for additional discussions.

MECHANISMS TO DEPLOY DOD S&T FUNDING

S&T funding is normally competitively awarded to industry and academia using one of four contracting mechanisms:¹³

• Contract: when the U.S. federal government acquires (i.e., purchases or procures) goods or services from a non-federal entity.
• Grant: when the U.S. federal government transfers anything of value from the federal government to a non-federal entity to carry out a public purpose authorized by U.S. law.
• Cooperative agreement: very similar to a grant but different in that it provides for substantial involvement between the federal awarding agency and the non-federal entity in carrying out the activity contemplated by the federal award.
• Technology investment agreement (formerly known as “other transaction authority”) (32 CFR Part 37):¹⁴ an agreement used by the federal government for advanced technology development (within DoD, budget activity 6.3) to streamline acquisition outside of Federal Acquisition Requirements (FAR 5000 series) directives. Technology investment agreements rarely involve academia as a prime, but academic institutions can support these acquisition approaches as subcontractors. These agreements were not considered directly relevant to the committee’s charge. However, a recent example, worth watching over time, is the nonprofit Minority Serving R&D Consortium that has entered into a technology investment agreement with the Army Combatant Capabilities Development Command’s Edgewood Chemical Biological Center.

Regardless of the contract/grant type used to award DoD funds, the awarding agencies use an established, mostly online, standard solicitation and response process.¹⁵ Once funding is awarded, awarding agencies employ an established process to administer and eventually close out a contract or grant (GSA, 1994). Rigorous rules apply for internal controls standards, equipment purchase/management, intellectual property, indirect cost rate negotiations, audits, and so on. To become eligible and to execute an award, these rules—along with the many formal and informal processes—represent significant commitments of time and resources for applicants.

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¹³ See https://www.grants.gov/learn-grants/grant-policies.html.

¹⁴ See https://www.ecfr.gov/current/title-32/subtitle-A/chapter-I/subchapter-C/part-37.

¹⁵ See, for example, https//www.grants.gov/.

SELECT DOD PROGRAMS DESIGNED TO ADVANCE THE COMPETITIVENESS OF INSTITUTIONS OF HIGHER EDUCATION

DoD currently operates and funds many programs to advance the scientific competitiveness of organizations. Some of these programs are targeted specifically for HBCU/MIs, while most are open to all institutions. University researchers and research administrators must be able to identify the DoD-sponsored programs for which they are competitive, examining the many opportunities found in every part of the broad DoD R&D enterprise and in national solicitation announcement vehicles (e.g., www.grants.gov). Given the array of opportunities available, the committee prepared a basic “roadside assistance tool” as a resource for HBCU/MIs that may be less familiar DoD opportunities (see Appendix E). The committee was briefed orally or in writing about several relevant programs by representatives of DoD-investing S&T offices, key examples of which are summarized below.

DoD HBCU/MI Targeted Programs

Several programs developed specifically for HBCU/MIs (“targeted programs”) are overseen, and partially funded, by the Office of the Secretary of Defense. The purpose of its HBCU/MI Science Program is to (1) increase the research and educational capacity of HBCU/MIs, and (2) foster workforce diversity and entry of underrepresented minorities into STEM disciplines important to national defense. This program is coordinated with the military departments’ research offices. It also partners with a specific military department (most recently, the Army Research Laboratory) for the awarding and management of the Office of the Secretary of Defense’s HBCU/MI Centers of Excellence and its research

equipment program. The HBCU/MI program is carried out under the authority at 10 USC § 2362.¹⁶

Each military department, through the Army Research Laboratory, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and Office of Naval Research, and coordinated with the Office of the Secretary of Defense, also manages and funds its own research, equipment procurement and internship programs, and HBCU/MI-wide educational sessions that explain its grant/contract solicitation and administration processes (see Box 3-2).

The committee attempted to gather quantitative and qualitative data on the success of the targeted programs (i.e., longitudinal data on HBCU/MI proposal submissions and success rates, and metrics of increased capacity at awarded HBCU/MIs), but was unable to obtain clear and reliable data across each of the military departments, or from the Office of the Secretary of Defense HBCU/MI office. These data limitations are further discussed in Chapter 4.

Despite the mission of the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering’s HBCU/MI Science Program to “increase the research and educational capacity of HBCU/MIs,” the availability of programs that specifically plan for, or invest strategically in, research capacity-building was not found. Nor did the committee find quantifiable data to assess the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering’s success in building capacity. Upon a review of the programs, the committee found that there is a deficit in targeted capacity-building opportunities for HBCU/MIs.

Defense Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research

Many opportunities for DoD support arise because an institution of higher education is located near a DoD research lab or other facility. In recognition that relevant expertise may rest elsewhere throughout the country, Congress mandated the creation of the Defense Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DEPSCoR) about 30 years ago (IDA, 2008). It is a capacity-building program designed to strengthen the research infrastructure at institutions of higher education in underutilized states/territories, which are determined through a formula that takes certain previous funding for institutions of higher education into account (USD(R&E), 2021b). The Office of the Secretary of Defense provided approximately $10 million in FY 2020 to the Army Research Laboratory, Air Force Office of Scientific Research, and Office of Naval Research for DEPSCoR.

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¹⁶ Section 2362 of Title 10, United States Code, authorized the Secretary of Defense to establish a program to provide assistance to HBCUs and MIs in defense-related research, development, testing, and evaluation activities. See https://www.govinfo.gov/app/details/USCODE-2010-title10/USCODE-2010-title10-subtitleA-partIV-chap139-sec2362.

Institutions of higher education in 34 states were eligible (Figure 3-4); however, of the 17 awards issued in FY 2020, none were to HBCU/MIs.¹⁷

Similarly, NSF’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) program is designed to enhance “research competitiveness of targeted jurisdictions (states, territories, commonwealth) by strengthening STEM capacity and capability.” The goals of the program are to “catalyze research capability across and among jurisdictions; establish STEM professional development pathways; broaden participation of diverse groups/institutions in STEM; effect engagement in STEM at national and global levels; and impact jurisdictional economic development” (NSF, 2021a). Unlike DEPSCoR, EPSCoR actively works to broaden support to HBCU/MIs. In 2021, NSF announced a funding opportunity through EPSCoR to build partnerships with Minority-Serving Institutions, with a special focus on early-career faculty (NSF, 2021b).

Awards to Stimulate and Support Undergraduate Research Experiences (ASSURE) Program

The ASSURE program (Awards to Stimulate and Support Undergraduate Research Experiences) supports undergraduate research in DoD-relevant disciplines to increase the number of high-quality undergraduate science and engineering majors who pursue advanced degrees. It supports both ongoing research programs and those especially designed for the award opportunity, with the goals of providing students with high-quality interaction with faculty and/or other research mentors and access to appropriate facilities and professional development opportunities. DoD is interested in strengthening institutions with limited research programs and encourages proposals that help to enhance the research infrastructure in predominantly undergraduate four-year institutions. The award is made to the institution, which then selects the students (U.S. citizens or permanent residents) who participate (NSF, 2022).

DoD executes the ASSURE program collaboratively with NSF through its Research Experiences for Undergraduates Sites Program. Since FY 2003, DoD has contributed several million dollars per year, through an interagency agreement with NSF, to support Research Experiences for Undergraduates sites that focus on research relevant to DoD’s interests. Currently, however, the Air Force Office of Scientific Research is the only DoD entity involved in ASSURE. There were 14 awards each in 2020 and 2021. No awards went to HBCUs; two MIs were recipients between 2020 and 2021 (one in each year).¹⁸

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¹⁷ See https://www.cto.mil/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/FY20-program-press-release-final.pdf.

¹⁸ Personal communication, [E. Pawlikowski], [Stakeholder], October 19, 2021; see Public Access File.

National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program

The National Defense Science and Engineering Graduate Fellowship Program, established in 1989 by direction of Congress and sponsored by the Army, Navy, and Air Force, is designed to encourage baccalaureate recipients to enter graduate school and earn doctorates that align to the DoD services priorities in research. Since the program’s inception, more than 4,000 fellowships have been awarded from more than 60,000 applications received. DoD awards new three-year graduate fellowships each fiscal year (subject to the availability of funds) to individuals who have demonstrated ability and special aptitude for advanced training in science and engineering.¹⁹ This program, while not targeted to HBCU/MIs, may support students in pursuing graduate studies related to defense research.

HBCU/MIS AND THE DOD S&T WORKFORCE

As discussed in Chapter 2, the committee recognizes that HBCU/MIs vary widely in terms of their missions, priorities, and research focus. However, the committee notes that all HBCU/MIs, regardless of size, mission, and level of DoD funding, have demonstrated an ability to serve as resources for the STEM workforce upon which DoD relies. The importance of these institutions in supporting the diversity of the federal S&T workforce cannot be overstated.

To maximize the potential, previous National Academies reports have recommended support for authentic and culturally relevant STEM engagement and research experiences, expanded scholarships and fellowships at minority-serving institutions and institutions with high levels of diversity, initiatives to increase diversity and inclusion in student populations, and reduced barriers to support individuals from underrepresented groups. Expanding support for undergraduate students at HBCU/MIs, including through internships and scholarships, may expand the pipeline for students entering the STEM workforce upon which DoD relies.

DoD currently has programs in place to support the STEM pipeline, beginning in secondary education. It also has several internship and scholarship programs in place that support underrepresented students in STEM, including from HBCU/MIs. Examples include the National Defense Education Program’s Science, Mathematics, and Research for Transformation (SMART) Scholarship-for-Service Program and DoD National Defense Education Program for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. However, limited information was available to examine the effectiveness of these and other programs, including tracking progression of students along the pipeline and whether students from HBCU/MIs are entering the STEM workforce as DoD employees, in industry,

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¹⁹ See NDSEG.sysplus.com.

or in academia. This suggests that these programs and others like it need to establish metrics for success and track them to determine whether they need to be bolstered. There may be additional opportunities to address DoD’s S&T workforce challenges by expanding these and other scholarship and internship programs targeted at undergraduate students in HBCU/MIs. A corollary consideration is development of competitive “targeted” HBCU/MI programs aimed at undergraduates in STEM.

Two DoD programs designed to expand research capacity of institutions as well as support the future STEM workforce include the National Defense Education Program’s SMART Scholarship Program and the DoD National Defense Education Program for Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics. The SMART Scholarship-for-Service Program provides students with a full STEM scholarship, internships, and guaranteed placement at a DoD lab or facility upon graduation. It funds bachelor’s, master’s, and Ph.D. degrees in critical STEM disciplines.²⁰ The application is available online from August through December of every year. Students pursuing degrees related to engineering, science, mathematics, architecture, oceanography, and operations research are encouraged to apply. Given the goal of post-graduation work placement, this program is only open to U.S. citizens or other applicants who are likely to be able to gain a security clearance. Based on data collected from the Office of the Secretary of Defense, from 2016 to 2020, the SMART Program awarded a total of 35 scholarships to students attending HBCUs. Of that total, three students are currently pursuing doctoral degrees, and one student is currently pursuing a master of science degree. In 2021, students from 15 HBCU/MIs were awarded scholarships under this program.

In 2020, the Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering awarded $31 million over a three-year period to establish or expand STEM education, outreach, and workforce initiatives for students and educators from early childhood through postsecondary levels. The goal of this effort is to establish programs to better position the current and next-generation STEM workforce. Particular to this study, the National Defense Education Program awards in 2020 included two minority recipients: Alabama A&M (partnered with Navajo Technical University and the University of Houston) and Cook Inlet Tribal Council, Inc (DoD STEM, 2020).

REFERENCES

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²⁰ See https://www.smartscholarship.org/smart.

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NSF (National Science Foundation). 2021a. Dear colleague letter: Supplements to broaden networks and partnerships between National Science Foundation’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) Research Infrastructure Improvement Program (RII) track-2 projects and minority serving institutions. https://www.nsf.gov/od/oia/programs/epscor/.

NSF. 2021b. OIA’s Established Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (EPSCoR) section. https://www.nsf.gov/pubs/2021/nsf21078/nsf21078.jsp?org=NSF.

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