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Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
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1

Introduction

BRIEF HISTORY

In 1945, maintaining competency across science and technology (S&T) was relatively straightforward for the United States because most of the world’s base for research, development, engineering, and manufacture was here. World War II had destroyed or greatly disrupted industry, education, and society in most of the rest of the industrialized world—both for victors and for vanquished. Before and during the war, many of Europe’s leading scientists and engineers had sought refuge in the United States, and others would come after the cessation of hostilities, with the result that the U.S. S&T enterprise soon evolved into an attractive magnet for a disproportionate share of the world’s technical talent. The U.S. wartime effort had led to the creation of an impressive array of government-funded laboratories, which were maintained, improved, and expanded in the following decades. Additionally, the creation of the national security industrial sector that operated at the technological forefront greatly enhanced our S&T dominance.

Over the decades since, the S&T landscape has become more diverse and more globally distributed. For example, the private sector in the United States now invests more in S&T than the federal government does; the commercial sector leads the defense sector in many areas; and that commercial sector is increasingly entangled with foreign partners. The rest of the world spends more on research and development (R&D) than does the United States, and the U.S. share is projected to continue declining. Although the Soviet Union is no more, Russia remains a formidable adversary in many ways, and China has emerged as our primary S&T adversary. To quote one of this report’s anonymous reviewers, “China’s economic growth has reached over 60 percent of U.S. Gross Domestic Product (GDP), an achievement never matched by any other country in two centuries. It is today America’s primary rival in economic and scientific competition, and its ability to scale programs to competitive advantage is unparalleled. China rapidly advanced its own scientific capabilities in recent decades through focused R&D investment and by acquiring foreign technology.” In addition, China is attempting to stimulate a new S&T brain drain from the United States. In the 1930s, 1940s, and beyond, scientists came to the United States from Europe, seeking better personal and career opportunities. In contrast, the current Chinese Sea Turtle program offers major incentives, financial and other, to U.S. scientist-citizens who were born in China, if they agree to return and help China benefit from the training and knowledge acquired in the United States.

Globalization of S&T has created opportunities for other nations as well. This democratization has been accompanied by another significant trend. Whereas the world of strategic R&D was dominated in the mid-20th century by the physical sciences and their technological applications, the past several decades have seen the emergence of

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×

information (including automation) and biological sciences1 as major foci of research, development, and product engineering and manufacture. Each of these disciplines has its own networks and infrastructures that differ from those associated with the physical sciences. Increasingly, researchers working across technical disciplines are producing advances enabled by cross-disciplinary technological convergence.

THE CHANGING NATURE OF GLOBAL S&T

Changes in the global S&T landscape over recent decades have heightened the importance of S&T to the Intelligence Community (IC). The growth of commercial enterprises based in cutting-edge S&T—think Internet commerce, AI-based software, the bio-based economy, advances in communications, novel materials, and other developments—is evidence that technology is progressing rapidly on multiple fronts. Private-sector funding and exploitation of research have commercialized and marketed sophisticated technologies that the government has relied on for national defense. In those (many) areas in which the private sector leads the government, the government has only the same product access as adversaries and private consumers. And many of those developments are occurring not only in open-source environments such as universities and government laboratories, but also in proprietary firms.

At the same time, this increased commercialization of S&T is also becoming more international. That is especially true for fields such as life sciences R&D and computing-based technologies that have been able to take root in multiple countries. On top of these trends is China’s ascension as an economic, political, and military rival, and as a leader in S&T. China’s growing S&T footprint in government, military, intelligence, and commercial domains, and some positions taken by the Chinese government, combine to pose a great challenge to the United States.

The global development of increasingly sophisticated technologies creates a further challenge to the United States. The development and dissemination of such technologies—for example, cyber tools, advanced sensors, biometric devices, biomanufacturing, high-resolution imagery, enhanced technical surveillance equipment, advanced encryption, and big data analytics—means that in many cases such technologies are commercially available at a global scale. While these technological advances are enhancing our lives, they can also be innovatively used to threaten U.S. national security. The development of next-generation technologies such as the Internet of Things, 5G communications, and quantum computing will eventually present new opportunities for foreign adversaries to collect intelligence and engage in cyber operations. Technologies such as space-based collection, additive manufacturing, robotics, portable energy sources, miniaturization and nanotechnology, and advances in the life sciences, for example in synthetic biology, will also impact national security and the IC’s mission.

Finally, strategic competition with China, Russia, and other countries is in many ways enabled by science and engineering. Much of the competition has so far been over technologies from AI to quantum to hypersonics. The Chinese political-economic system is well-tailored to acquiring, funding, developing, and fielding national security-relevant technologies. Indeed, China is already leading in certain technological areas that are important for national security, such as hypersonic missiles, facial recognition and space-based quantum communications. This presents both a science and technology intelligence requirement for the IC as well as a need for the IC to maintain its own competitive edge.

A component of the IC’s core mission is to prevent surprise, and each of the 18 IC entities has a distinct role in that mission. An important category of surprise is S&T surprise—for example, a development in S&T by one of our adversaries that introduces a new threat to the nation’s security. Thus, the IC needs to gather intelligence

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1 Biosciences have been at least as prominent as information sciences over the past few decades; this is especially obvious now with mRNA technology in response to the pandemic. But other areas (e.g., CRISPR, treatment of trauma, new vaccines, MRI, brain research, and so on) have arisen over the past 50 years).

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×

on the S&T programs of adversaries, through S&T intelligence (S&TI).2 Beyond this, a broad awareness of S&T facilitates the IC’s leveraging of the leading edge of technology for its own various missions, and to better inform U.S. decision-makers. For the IC, S&T can also serve as a tool for executing the agencies’ work and as a target that adversaries might exploit to our disadvantage. A particular need is to anticipate and properly characterize potential S&T breakthroughs that could negate the effectiveness of current collection techniques and tools. This is one aspect of the “S&T as a Target” issue, and failure to correctly anticipate and prepare for any such potential changes can generate a collection gap and open the community to adversary surprise. Just a few past examples of technology shifts that presented risks to the IC include global satellite communications moving to terrestrial cable, analog moving to digital, circuit-based techniques moving to packet techniques like IP, and first-generation mobile transmissions advancing to higher capabilities. These kinds of shifts require significant preparation to deal with at scale, and thus early understanding of feasibility and trends is essential to avoid “going blind.”

Successful commercial companies likewise must keep a close watch on global S&T trends, continually assess whether relative advantage/disadvantage might come from any potential S&T advances and/or competitor innovations, and adapt quickly and agilely when any such potential advantage/disadvantage becomes apparent. Failure to do so risks declining value of their products or services, global market share loss, and severe financial consequences. Similarly, the IC must have a strong understanding of how global S&T trends might impact operations. Utilization of the best available technologies to keep collection and processing, communications, and analytic processes more effective than those implemented by adversaries is clearly important.

Maintaining S&T awareness and conducting S&TI are not synonymous. The latter is focused on foreign adversaries, and it may involve results that are not accessible to the public, whereas S&T awareness is much broader, aiming to cover S&T from all sources that could be available for utilization, including mundane and open-source information, such as new patents. However, the distinction between military technology and consumer technology is blurring. Additionally, in a globalized world in which researchers routinely are educated or work across borders, in which companies are multinational, and in which research publications are instantly available around the world, the boundaries between technology created domestically, by foreign allies, or by foreign adversaries are increasingly porous. The IC must be good at both S&TI and S&T awareness, and at managing both their overlaps and necessary distinctions. This creates an additional level of complexity for the IC, which must navigate economic issues, national borders, and domestic authorities. This report of the Committee on Leveraging the Future Research and Development Ecosystem for the Intelligence Community aims to help the IC increase its capacity to navigate these converged complexities of S&TI and S&T awareness.

A recent Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) report, Maintaining the Intelligence Edge: Reimagining and Reinventing Intelligence Through Innovation,3 highlighted the need for the IC to relentlessly pursue competitive advantage relative to our principal adversaries, particularly by reimagining and reinventing methods to leverage technological innovation. Its focus was on the use of technological innovations that are enabled by “artificial intelligence (AI) and associated emerging technologies, including cloud computing, advanced sensors, and big data analytics.” It pointed to the need for both culture change and the mastery of global S&T advances.

Building on the Intelligence Edge report, this report examines how the IC might better leverage the IC’s internal knowledge of the full range of S&T. While the technical areas covered in the Intelligence Edge report will fundamentally change both the global threat landscape and the IC’s tradecraft, advances from biology, chemistry, materials, quantum science, network science, social/behavioral/economic sciences, and other fields also have that potential. And in contrast to that report, which focused largely on strengthening the IC’s internal capabilities with respect to AI and associated emerging technologies, this report looks across the broader government, domestic, and

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2 “Scientific and Technical Intelligence (also Science and Technology Intelligence or Scientific and Technological Intelligence; abbreviated S&TI) is the systematic study and analysis of foreign capabilities in basic and applied research and applied engineering. S&TI products are used to warn of foreign technical developments and capabilities and to guide the development of future capabilities, which are often provided through R&D.” See United States Intelligence Community, 2013, Report of the National Commission for the Review of the Research and Development Programs of the United States Intelligence Community, Unclassified Version, https://www.intelligence.senate.gov/sites/default/files/commission_report.pdf.

3 Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), 2021, Maintaining the Intelligence Edge: Reimagining and Reinventing Intelligence Through Innovation, a report of the CSIS Technology and Intelligence Task Force, Washington, DC, January.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×

global S&T environments, taking into account how those environments are evolving.4 The Chapter 4 section titled “Dynamic Nature of Today’s S&T Ecosystem” provides one example that extends the lessons from the CSIS report.

The committee generally concurs with the major findings of the CSIS report, and its recommendations are consistent with them. In particular, both reports recommend elevating the focus on S&T by creating a “C-suite” position, either chief technology officer or chief technology and innovation officer. Going one step further than the CSIS report, this report argues that S&TI and S&T awareness are necessary core components of intelligence in the great power competition as a means to avert strategic S&T surprise and to provide the IC with an S&T edge against competitors;5 and can also provide insight into reducing the loss of U.S. intellectual property to others. This report makes recommendations regarding how the IC can (1) innovate and leverage advances from other fields of S&T and (2) be better positioned to identify, track, and employ developments across all of S&T in the service of the core intelligence missions of collection, analysis, and distribution. Because the needs for S&T awareness vary greatly across the IC mission areas and agencies, how best to strengthen that capability is not amenable to a one-size-fits-all approach. For that reason, this report leaves the details to the IC, to be worked out in classified deliberations. What is clear, however, is that any proposed approach for strengthening S&T awareness must be cognizant of current and future gaps and be tailored to each of the cultures and sub-cultures across the IC. This could not be addressed in this unclassified study.

WHAT DOES IT MEAN FOR THE IC TO “LEVERAGE” THE S&T LANDSCAPE?

Although the R&D landscape is evolving, the IC’s core mission remains the same—to understand and anticipate global trends and to deliver timely, accurate, and relevant analysis of those trends to U.S. policy- and decision-makers so as to avert strategic surprise and provide those leaders with decision-advantage over competitors. Advances in S&T improve our options for intelligence collection, as well as for the IC’s own internal operations. And the impacts of nontraditional threat areas such as climate change (with geopolitical impacts that can affect both diplomatic and military planning) continue to expand the range of S&T that the IC must monitor and evaluate.

Currently, the IC is not well positioned to leverage the rapid developments in S&T of recent years and anticipated in the future. When a potentially game-changing insight originates somewhere in the S&T ecosystem, someone in the IC not only has to recognize the potential for where it might be advantageously applied, but also must have the bureaucratic skill to assemble adequate funding and staff for rapid implementation. At present, the IC’s capabilities for recognizing game-changing S&T developments and their implications for intelligence operations, and rapidly converting them to operational advantage, are not as efficient or effective as they need to be.

The IC must therefore have a comprehensive, global awareness of, and access to, a broad range of S&T, including S&T that is still under development. A foundational strategy exists to support this. For example, the National Security Strategy (NSS) of the United States of America (December 2017) directs the IC to master strategic intelligence issues through research, knowledge development, collaboration with experts within the IC, and outreach to experts in academia and industry, as well as the use of advanced analytics and tradecraft, to provide assessments on the strategic context for the policy- and decision-makers.6 The IC’s overall S&T strategy is articulated in the fiscal year (FY) 2016-2020 IC S&T Strategic Plan, which has the objective of ensuring future

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4 In fact, the Intelligence Edge report (footnote 3) recommended that ODNI, “in partnership with the National Academy of Sciences, should sponsor a study on the potential intelligence collection applications and implications of synthetic biology and associated technologies.” The CSIS report mentioned as just one example that “synthetic biology, its convergence with AI and computational power, and possible intelligence mission applications such as biosurveillance applications and remote sensing with biological systems [stand] out as having a potentially transformational and generational impact for the collection of intelligence.”

5 See G.C. Allen, 2019, Understanding China’s AI Strategy, Washington, DC: Center for a New American Security, posted February 6, http://www.cnas.org/publications/reports/understanding-chinas-ai-strategy. Strengthening the discussion in footnote 3, above, again from the Intelligence Edge report, there is a particular challenge from China, arguably the strongest U.S. competitor in developing key technologies. Chinese leadership is reportedly convinced that AI technology is critical to global power competition, both militarily and economically.

6 White House, 2017, National Security Strategy of the United States of America, December, Washington, DC, p. 8, https://trumpwhitehouse.archives.gov/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/NSS-Final-12-18-2017-0905.pdf.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×

intelligence advantage and guiding the application of S&T to solve intelligence problems.7 Also of relevance, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence’s (ODNI’s) Director of S&T developed the Intelligence Science and Technology Partnership (In-STeP) as the foundational mechanism and process structure to assist the IC’s S&T investment decisions.8 In-STeP facilitates this by providing information to support greater synergy in the intelligence-related research efforts of the S&T enterprise, the broader U.S. government, foreign allies, partners in industry, FFRDCs, and academia.9

Coordination of the IC’s S&T efforts is managed on an ongoing basis through (1) ODNI’s Director for S&T (D/S&T), and (2) the National Intelligence S&T Committee (NISTC), which is chaired by the D/S&T. The NISTC is composed of the principal science officers of the National Intelligence Program, and one of its mandates is to coordinate advances in research and development related to intelligence. This report focuses on how the IC can enhance its access to the broad S&T landscape. It considers that landscape as consisting of four general domains: S&T expertise and activity within the IC itself; expertise and activity within the government more generally; the U.S. base of S&T activities; and the global enterprise.

The IC currently faces several factors that impede its ability to participate in such a global, collaborative ecosystem. First, IC security constraints prevent the IC from sharing many of its authentic concerns and insights with potential S&T partners. In addition, based on its extensive interviews and its members’ knowledge, the committee concludes that the IC is widely viewed as having a fairly insular and risk-averse culture, at least with respect to S&T investment and technology adoption, which inhibits the appetite to collaborate with outsiders. Finally, the combination of security constraints and government acquisition practices act to discourage potential S&T partners (e.g., universities, multinational companies, non-governmental organizations, and some federal agencies from outside the IC) from working with the IC. These factors are well recognized. For example, the IC’s FY 2016-2020 S&T Strategic Plan observes that it can be challenging for the IC to work with the basic research community because access to classified materials, security clearances, reporting requirements, and travel restrictions imposed on researchers may be perceived as inconsistent with the open, international nature of basic research.10 It identified the need for the IC S&T enterprise to be a “selectively permeable information conduit” between the open and classified worlds while staying ahead of security challenges and foreign counterintelligence activities.11

In public discussions, several senior officials have made reference to these problems. For example, during an October 2021 announcement of Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) organizational changes, Director William J. Burns noted that CIA has long talked about the need to increase its talent pool. However, the long process to hire a candidate is often a deterrent. In order to attract and hire talent, Burns announced changes to processes to significantly reduce the time it takes for applicants to join CIA. He also announced the launch of the CIA Technology Fellows program to bring promising experts to CIA for 1 to 2 years of public service.12

Some of the individual IC agencies—particularly the “big five”13—have well-funded, well-managed S&T programs to support their individual missions. However, those programs quite naturally tend to prioritize short- and intermediate-term developmental activities over a broader, or longer-term, S&T awareness. The IC as a whole could benefit from adding complementary awareness of S&T that might not link to near-term missions. This prioritizing of near-term missions, when funding S&T projects, is especially problematic if needed R&D is to be performed in an academic setting (see Chapter 4). Without such an overview capability, individual agencies could be limited in their abilities to identify threats and opportunities outside their established scope. Efforts to coordinate and to provide a broad view exist within ODNI, but these have been limited in scope.

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7 Office of the Director of National Intelligence (ODNI), 2016, The FY 2016-2020 IC S&T Strategic Plan: Managing Risk to Ensure Intelligence Advantage, Washington, DC: ODNI S&T, https://www.dni.gov/files/documents/atf/In-STeP%20-%20Strategic%20Plan.pdf. ODNI is currently developing a new Strategic Plan for FY 2021-2025.

8 ODNI, 2016, The FY 2016-2020 IC S&T Strategic Plan, p. 7.

9 ODNI, 2016, The FY 2016-2020 IC S&T Strategic Plan, pp. 7 and 27.

10 ODNI, 2016, The FY 2016-2020 IC S&T Strategic Plan, p. 3.

11 ODNI, 2016, The FY 2016-2020 IC S&T Strategic Plan, p. 3.

12 J. Hamilton, 2021, “CIA Wants to Speed Up Hiring Process and Leidos Wins $300M NSA SIGINT Award,” October 8, https://news.clearancejobs.com/2021/10/08/cia-wants-to-speed-up-hiring-process-and-leidos-wins-300m-nsa-sigint-award.

13 The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), the Defense Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency (NSA), the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), and the National Reconnaissance Office (NRO) are often referred to as the “Big Five,” within the IC.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×

CHARGE FOR THIS STUDY

The study that led to this report was commissioned by ODNI, which defined the following charge:

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine will appoint an ad hoc committee to plan, organize, and write a consensus report that will be based largely on two unclassified workshops. The first workshop will review projections of the evolution of the R&D ecosystem and implications for the Intelligence Community (IC). The second workshop will focus on how elements of the IC might strengthen and enhance their ability to contribute to the maintenance of the R&D ecosystem to help ensure that the R&D needs of the IC are included in the R&D agenda, leverage that system, and benefit from the investments of other government agencies and the private sector. Following each of the two workshops, an NRC-appointed rapporteur will produce a workshop proceedings-in-brief that will be provided to the sponsor.

After reviewing the workshop results and consulting with the sponsor, the study committee will hold meetings to gather further information and perspectives, and to hold interactive substantive discussions. The study committee will produce a peer-reviewed consensus report, including findings and recommendations. In deliberating and writing its report, the committee may also address topics such as:

  • What are basic perceptions of the goals of the nation’s R&D ecosystem?
  • What are current approaches for ensuring a healthy R&D ecosystem?
  • Given twenty-first century realities, what are realistic goals and expectations?
  • How might the US IC work to facilitate a whole-of-government approach for a robust innovation ecosystem?

The project will produce (1) two unclassified, workshop proceedings-in-brief prepared by a designated rapporteur; and (2) an unclassified, peer-reviewed consensus report that draws from the information gathered during the workshops and other information sources, as needed, and will provide findings and recommendations. If cleared members of the committee believe that the work warrants a classified annex to the unclassified report, the sponsor will accept that as part of this task.

Because the four bulleted questions in this charge are optional (“the committee may also address”), the committee did not attempt an in-depth answer to the first three of them. It focused its attention on the final bullet, examining it through four related questions, with the concurrence of the sponsor:

  1. How can the IC agencies determine how best to spend their S&T funds, and how can those individual investments be coordinated across the IC? Better coordination—but not centralized management—would be valuable.
  2. How can the IC derive best value from—and influence as appropriate—the investments of other U.S. government agencies?
  3. How can the IC gain best benefit from the efforts of U.S. industry, academia (both in R&D and education), and national laboratories?
  4. How can the IC best interact with the global S&T enterprise? Failing to engage with the increasingly globalized S&T environment risks forgoing what may be the best available technology and raises the likelihood of technological surprise. On the other hand, there are also risks associated with adversarial access to critical S&T and on reliance on technology that adversaries originate, dominate, own, or control.

In meeting this charge, the committee considered direct investments, partnerships, venues for cooperation and coordination, applicable laws and regulations (both domestic and international), and mechanisms for setting standards. This is, in large part, a study of how the IC can best employ its assets to appropriately leverage the broad S&T enterprise, including through S&T funding, through participation in interagency forums, and by strengthening relationships with universities, corporations, and related organizations. The charge suggests that the IC already recognizes a need to strengthen its leveraging of S&T, and is seeking advice on options for doing so. Therefore, the committee did not attempt to make that case, although it did draw on its own experience and information gathering to prioritize its suggestions.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×

HOW THE STUDY WAS CONDUCTED

The study charge is very broad, but it divides into four general questions related to domains in which IC-relevant S&T takes place: within the IC, elsewhere in the federal government, within domestic academic and commercial entities, and internationally. The committee notes that, while those charge questions may be clearly stated, they are not cleanly separated, and significant overlap was to be expected. The committee also agreed that the intent of the study (and report) would be to identify major issues, and present associated findings and actionable recommendations to support the overall goal of getting best access to the S&T landscape and to use it to full advantage. Most of the report’s recommendations are offered in a general sense (“The IC should … ”), recognizing that actual implementation would have to be assigned to specific S&T offices within ODNI and/or other IC agencies, and recognizing that, to varying degrees, some agencies are already doing some of these things. The purpose of this report is to give advice to ODNI regarding handling of S&T at its coordinating level, and not to prescribe specific actions to individual agencies. ODNI has a special role in coordinating the implementation of these recommendations within and across the agencies, and in formulating policy regarding these recommendations.

To address this charge, the committee focused on the four domains of S&T mentioned above. Chapters 2 through 5 address these questions in series, gradually opening the aperture to consider broader swaths of the overall S&T enterprise. To inform its deliberations, the committee held discussions with over 20 subject-matter experts during its meetings, and organized two information-gathering workshops. Summaries of those valuable workshops are included in Appendixes A and B. In order to gain an understanding of how R&D is managed within IC agencies, the committee’s staff conducted interviews with several S&T managers. The results of those interviews were determined to be controlled unclassified information (CUI) and were made available to committee members through appropriate channels. These interviews provided insights into how the S&T managers manage their programs, cooperate and partner outside their agencies, and coordinate across the IC, and handle some personnel matters. In addition, this report draws on the extensive experience of the members of the study committee (whose biographical information is provided in Appendix D).

Each chapter is generally organized around the following topics: (1) What does the IC need to be doing? (2) What are the current impediments to accomplishing those tasks? (3) What does the committee recommend to overcome these impediments? Since the scope of the problem varies across the four domains, the chapters are organized similarly, but not identically.

This study is unclassified, so the committee did not have access to information regarding specific IC S&T projects and budgets or regarding near-term or future gaps and challenges.

Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×
Page 9
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×
Page 10
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×
Page 11
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×
Page 12
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×
Page 13
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×
Page 14
Suggested Citation:"1 Introduction." National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine. 2022. Improving the Intelligence Community's Leveraging of the Full Science and Technology Ecosystem. Washington, DC: The National Academies Press. doi: 10.17226/26544.
×
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The agencies within the U.S. Intelligence Community (IC) depend on advanced technology to achieve their goals. While AI, cloud computing, advanced sensors, and big data analytics will fundamentally change both the global threat landscape and IC tradecraft, advances from biology, chemistry, materials, quantum science, network science, social/behavioral/economic sciences, and other fields also have that potential. Maintaining awareness of advances in science and technology is more essential than ever, to avoid surprise, to inflict surprise on adversaries, and to leverage those advances for the benefit of the nation and the IC. This report explores ways in which the IC might leverage the future research and development ecosystem.

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