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U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment (2022)

Chapter: 3 Innovation and Workforce

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Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
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3

Innovation and Workforce

INNOVATION AND WORKFORCE: OPPORTUNITIES FOR AFC TO ADAPT AND RESPOND TO FUTURE THREATS AND TO BE THE THREAT

The Army’s science and technology (S&T) enterprise is inextricably tied to its ability to innovate and outpace adversaries. it is the core of an organization’s ability to innovate its workforce and how that workforce is equipped and empowered to pursue innovative solutions to complex problems. An organization is only as innovative as it enables its personnel to be, particularly those at the edge.1 Keeping this connection in mind, the committee offers its observations on the overall state of innovation and the Army S&T workforce in light of this new reorganization.

Innovations may be discrete improvements to capabilities within a priority weapons system (e.g., new stealth coatings or upgraded software) or entirely new revolutionary capabilities (e.g., Global Positioning System or 5G). However, the freedom to explore new concepts and develop revolutionary new capabilities that are so critical to S&T demands an enterprise conducive to innovation and workforce development and retention. The following chapter details the committee’s sense of Army innovation, how to keep it vibrant, and take advantage of recent developments in the Army S&T enterprise.

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1 The phrase “at the edge” refers to near the source of work or data.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
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AFC, DEVCOM, and the S&T Community

Clarifying Engagement and Communication

Throughout discussions and the documents provided to it, the committee consistently heard the need for clear pathways and mechanisms for engaging with, understanding the needs of, and performing research for the Army. This is necessary for external industry, academic, and agency partners to maximize the impact of their research, particularly as it attempts to address Army priorities. The committee noted that the clear and consistent voice the Army uses to guide its external engagement with respect to modernization does not always carry through to the entirety of the Army’s S&T enterprise. Improved clarity in control, responsibility, and oversight of the Army research enterprise, especially as viewed from the outside, could easily strengthen unity of effort across Army research programs, opportunities, requirements, successes, and implementation strategies. The committee believes these challenges are particularly onerous for minority-serving institutions2 and small businesses. To its credit, the Army is continually visiting such institutions or holding seminars to explain broad Army needs and the S&T solicitation processes, informing those who are typically less familiar with them and have fewer resources available to identify the myriad of opportunities to participate.

While the Army Research Laboratory website has information related to larger opportunities and programs,3 for entities unfamiliar with research and development in the Department of Defense (DoD) or Army paradigms, finding initial points of engagement and resources remains a challenge. The U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) website could use additional clarity when describing opportunities to perform or translate ongoing research to meet AFC needs and improved transparency about how the research enterprise operates as a whole. A lack of consistent, repetitive (e.g., the same opportunities listed on both the AFC and the Combat Capabilities Development Command (CCDC or DEVCOM) websites), and easy to access information across all of the research enterprise websites raises the bar to participation for smaller academic institutions and small businesses that lack the infrastructure to maintain in-house expertise on government relations.

While determining how and on what to collaborate with AFC can be a challenge. AFC is in its infancy and has certainly made steps to engage industry, non-traditional, and academic partners. For example, the Army

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2 T. Brading, 2021, “Army Looks to Expand Research Opportunities with HBCUs,” U.S. Army News Service, https://www.army.mil/article/243564/army_looks_to_expand_research_opportunities_with_hbcus.

3 U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, Undated, “Partner With Us,” https://www.army.mil/devcom#org-contact-us, accessed September 30, 2021.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
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Applications Laboratory uses mostly non-traditional partners and their website has an opportunities page. The committee notes that as a model this would be good for AFC to adopt more widely.

A recent example of DoD-university partnerships is U.S. Space Force (USSF), which just established their University Partner Program (UPP) in 2021. There are about a dozen universities in the UPP so far, with more being added regularly. The UPP is a mix of premier research universities, historically black colleges and universities, and minority-serving institutions. One of the USSF goals is for the universities to have Reserve Officer Training Corps (ROTC) programs and they are working on linking ROTC scholarships to key research areas. The USSF also sponsors research at each UPP school. By collaborating with USSF, AFC may discover more methods to make it easier for academia, small businesses, and other entities not familiar with working in the DoD sector to engage in work addressing AFC’s priorities.

Conclusion: The Army S&T enterprise, while it has made progress in the quality of its external engagement community, would benefit from improved transparency and unity of voice, particularly to its external partners, and could lower barriers to collaboration, especially from minority serving institutions and small businesses.

Recommendation: While a “one-stop shop” may not be a practical solution, AFC should strengthen its efforts to ensure the consistency and simplicity in its strategic messaging when describing opportunities for basic research, as well as the transition of new technologies needed to fill its modernization and research gaps. AFC should look for methods to make it easier for those not familiar with the Army to do work with them. ERDCWERX, a partnership between DEFENSEWERX and the U.S. Army Engineer Research and Development Center, is a prime example of this sort of initiative.

Connecting the Entire Army with the S&T and Intelligence Communities

The Army understands the criticality of investing in S&T. The U.S. S&T community is extensive and includes research funded by DoD, civilian government agencies, industry, and academia, each of which brings a unique capability to bear. The Army needs to maintain and grow strong connections throughout the S&T ecosystem to take advantage of the full suite of capabilities for all research levels from basic, to applied, and then to advanced. The growth in DoD research funding over the past half-decade has been significantly more modest than the increases in private sector research and development (see Figures 3.1 and 3.2), which represent a critical source of innovation and technology for the Army to connect with.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Image
FIGURE 3.1 Research and development (R&D) spending in the United States. SOURCE: Reproduced with permission of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis: A.M. Santacreu and H. Zhu, 2018, “R&D: Business Spending Up, Government Spending Flat,” On the Economy Blog, May 14, https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-theeconomy/2018/may/rd-business-spending-up-government-spending-flat. © 2018 Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.

The committee also sees strong evidence that the Army seeks and utilizes operator input to identify capability needs and evaluate the suitability of the proposed technologies to meet those needs. The Army’s Project Convergence and Team Ignite initiatives are prime examples of the inclusion of operator input to support capability needs. It would be beneficial to the Army to expand these interactions to include requirements development and acquisitions teams to benefit from the development of requirements identify priorities for technologies, as well as potential providers. These interactions would not only inform the academic and industry S&T communities about the Army’s needs, but also how its own research could be adjusted to meet the needs of the operators.4 As an example, the USSF is establishing new processes to tie the space opera-

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4 In addition to providing input to inform technology development, the operators play an important role in validating the technology. This in turn provides feedback to inform the next technology iteration.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Image
FIGURE 3.2 Trends in federal research and development (R&D), fiscal year (FY) 1976-2020. NOTE: ARRA refers to the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act. SOURCE: M. Hourihan, 2021, “A Primer on Federal R&D Budget Trends,” American Association for the Advancement of Science, https://www.aaas.org/sites/default/files/2021-02/AAAS%20R%26D%20Primer%20Update%202021.pdf.

tors into the S&T requirements development process. Those needs are then summarized in an unclassified “Book of Needs” that is available to industry, laboratory, and academic partners.

The committee also noted that the Army is connected to the Intelligence Community at both the AFC headquarters and laboratory levels to provide the threat analyses necessary to inform their S&T work. The committee was unable to learn the full extent of the details of these processes due to classification.

The Office of the Undersecretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD (R&E)) is charged with oversight and development of the DoD technology strategy. In addition to organizing research oversight along technology area lines, it has also developed DoD communities of interest (CoIs) for the 17 major research areas.5 These CoIs reach across the entire government with

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5 DoD Communities of Interest are listed at Defense Innovation Marketplace, “Reliance 21—DoD Communities of Interest,” https://defenseinnovationmarketplace.dtic.mil/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/reliance21_communities_of_interest_2018.pdf, accessed September 30, 2021.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×

representatives from each stakeholder to facilitate and maximize research opportunities, encourage synergies, and help reduce duplication.

The committee did learn that there is some knowledge of and engagement with the CoIs among the laboratories. For example, Mr. John Willison, the deputy to the commanding general of DEVCOM, noted that there are regular “lab syncs” among the various Service laboratory directors. This enables the sharing of information, but the level of actual collaboration among the laboratories is unclear. Mr. Willison noted that the Army’s Project Convergence included the other Services and served as a mechanism for awareness to minimize duplication and maximize collaboration. However, this collaboration was principally focused on improving operational concepts and integration of weapons systems and concepts of operation, not necessarily technology development.

Recommendation: The committee emphasizes the critical role played by communities of interest (CoIs) in Department of Defense-wide science and technology. While some engagement with the CoIs is ongoing (i.e., through engagement with subject-matter experts from across the S&T enterprise), the committee encourages the Army to recommit to CoI engagement via AFC and DEVCOM.

The committee is concerned that the knowledge shared by the CoIs may not be fully leveraged by the broader Army S&T enterprise, thereby preventing the modest growth in federal R&D (mentioned above) from stretching as far as it can go. Hypersonics technology typifies this risk where the three Services and multiple DoD and government agencies are investing in all aspects of hypersonics (see Figure 3.3). While the application work is being coordinated well at the level of the Office of the Secretary of Defense, each Service is working a discrete application; therefore, particular attention is needed for coordination among the various participants at the S&T level. According to the Government Accountability Office, hypersonics is an example where Army investments may not be well synchronized.6

Competitions have served as an effective mechanism for engagement between the government and the extramural (outside government) S&T community. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has been a pioneer in utilizing competitions and prizes to connect with the S&T community and highly innovative organizations. The Army has engaged in similar efforts but more can be leveraged to overcome near and long term Army S&T challenges.

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6 U.S. Government Accountability Office, 2021, Hypersonic Weapons: DOD Should Clarify Roles and Responsibilities to Ensure Coordination across Development Efforts, https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-378.pdf.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
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FIGURE 3.3 Department of Defense hypersonics spending by program. SOURCE: T. Hitchens and S. Freedberg, 2020, “DoD Seeks $2.9B for Hypersonics in 2021,” Breaking Defense, https://breakingdefense.com/2020/04/exclusive-dod-asks-2-9b-for-hypersonics-in-2021/.

Conclusion: It is possible that the Army is funding redundant capabilities and not optimizing its enterprise with other Services, DoD, DARPA, and other agencies.

Recommendation: AFC should make greater connections within the U.S. science and technology (S&T) ecosystem to leverage investments and technology innovations with the industrial, academic, and other Department of Defense organizations in order to avoid redundant investments and maximize utilization of nongovernmental developments. It should consider greater use of competitions akin to the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency’s Grand Challenges as a mechanism to engage industry, academia, and the rest of the S&T community.

Managing the Workforce

Workforce Development Planning: Balancing and Managing the Workforce

As the Army seeks to maintain operational and strategic advantages, comprehensive understanding of threats, opportunities, and adversary capabilities, it is imperative that it maintains a technical workforce that understands and can translate intelligence and field requirements to

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×

research priorities and opportunities. This workforce would ideally also have comprehensive ties to academia and industry to provide technical expertise to the enterprise, fill gaps in key areas, and enhance coverage of high-potential and high-risk technical areas. Throughout the interviews conducted, questions about workforce development emerged and the committee identified concerns in the following areas:

  • The recruitment and retention of an expert, technically capable workforce;
  • The ability to provide a clear, defined career path for this technical workforce that includes pathways for long-term achievement and advancement; and
  • The need for AFC to view S&T as an ecosystem that is comprised of a military, civil service, industry, academic, University Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs), and the federally funded research and development centers (FFRDCs)/national laboratory workforces—that needs to be viewed holistically in order to
    • Make proper investment decisions,
    • Understand where technical expertise sits,
    • Develop capabilities and labor in appropriate areas, and
    • Balance maintaining the internal workforce’s skill and proficiency while relying on external sources for expertise and support.

Conclusion: AFC’s S&T ecosystem comprises a military, civil service, industrial, academic, and UARC and FFRDC workforces that encompass both modernization (evolutionary) as well as innovation (revolutionary) and could benefit from a more comprehensive development plan to develop its workforce, in particular its senior level technical experts. Development of the civilian workforce is critical to maintaining continuity and innovation in Army S&T. Civilian Army personnel provide critical technical skills to support Army S&T needs.

DoD established the Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratory (STRL) organizational designation to apply to the service’s primary laboratory and S&T organizations. Laboratories and centers designated as STRLs include but are not limited to the following:7

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7 The full list of STRLs can be viewed at Office of the Under Secretary of Defense, Research and Engineering, “Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratory,” https://rt.cto.mil/ddre-rt/dd-rtl/strl/, accessed September 30, 2021.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
  • Air Force Research Laboratory
  • DEVCOM (to include the Army Research Laboratory [ARL])
  • Naval Research Laboratory

The goal of the STRL designation was to enable laboratory directors to be more flexible in their personnel management and use of discretionary spending. Specifically, STRLs, once designated “can avail themselves of certain legislated authorities directed towards STRLs such as personnel flexibilities, minor military construction flexibilities, ability to adopt mechanisms that give the STRL directors discretionary funding flexibility, etc.”8 The designation of DEVCOM and ARL as STRL organizations is a key asset to ensuring effective management of the workforce.

Finding: Army laboratories and engineering centers within DEVCOM are designated as STRL, and each laboratory director has statutory authority to manage his or her workforce to ensure the best and brightest are hired, retained, and given funding to do their job.

Recommendation: The Army leadership should ensure that the laboratory directors are empowered and effectively resourced to cultivate their workforce and are empowered to utilize all Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratory (STRL) authorities given to them. Army leadership should establish metrics to measure the effectiveness of STRL funding and ensure that laboratory directors are fully utilizing their resources to manage their respective workforces.

Be the Threat

As discussed throughout this report, S&T and the ability to innovate is critical for the United States to stay ahead of its adversaries. While modernization is critical to re-establishing overmatch against near peer adversary capabilities, if the United States is going to regain the technological lead that it held at the end of the 20th century, it needs to innovate with the goal of becoming the threat, not to simply meet the threat its adversaries pose. This will require a commitment to innovation and an empowered, motivated S&T workforce to deliver the future capabilities that will ensure U.S. military preeminence in the 21st century.

AFC was established, at least in part, to drive innovation. While the S&T funding section discussed the percentage of dollars allocated to

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8 See the Science and Technology Reinvention Laboratory website at https://rt.cto.mil/ddre-rt/dd-rtl/strl, accessed September 30, 2021.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×

innovation, the committee could find no other metrics to measure AFC’s impact on innovation. AFC stated they had metrics but the committee was not able to ascertain what they were or how they are using them.

Conclusion: Leadership commitment to innovation is essential and Army culture clearly adheres to the command principle of centralized control and decentralized execution.

Recommendation: AFC should ensure that its leadership not only provides consistent guidance to modernization and research priorities, but that it actively encourages appropriately delegated and decentralized execution at all levels of its science and technology (S&T) workforce to reduce confusion and ensure a clear vision for Army S&T and to ensure delivery of capabilities at higher quality and lower cost.

Recommendation: To not only encourage the culture of innovation that will allow the Army to “be the threat,” but also improve its ability to measure it, AFC should investigate and implement industry-proven best practices to drive innovation, including leadership commitment to innovation,9 incentives for implementing novel methods to solve problems, and clear lines of responsibility and accountability beyond simply the allocation of more funds.

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9 It is worth noting here that the private sector companies with reputations for innovation (Apple, Google, and Tesla) are also well known for their strong leadership (Steven Jobs, Eric Schmidt, and Elon Musk) and that leadership’s commitments to innovation.

Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 61
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 62
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 63
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 64
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 65
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 66
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 67
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 68
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 69
Suggested Citation:"3 Innovation and Workforce." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26413.
×
Page 70
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U.S. Army Futures Command Research Program Realignment Get This Book
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The U.S. Army Futures Command (AFC) leads a continuous effort to modernize and innovate to support future warfighters. AFC now oversees Combat Capability Development Command and has recently reorganized certain research offices, laboratories, and engineering centers. In response to this realignment, the Senate Armed Services Committee asked the National Academies' Board on Army Research and Development to examine these research portfolio changes and assess their impact. This report investigates and assesses the Army's strategy behind the realignment, discusses the issues with stakeholders, and makes recommendations to ensure the alignment meets with Army modernization priorities.

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