Despite shifts in its research and funding focus, the Defense Adv...
Despite shifts in its research and funding focus, the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) still plays a key role in U.S. IT innovation, said Erica Fuchs, assistant professor in the Department of Engineering and Public Policy at Carnegie…
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Mellon University. Once, DARPA emphasized high- risk, high-reward and open-ended funding of universities, but after a decade of technological change it now aims its funds at vendors, Fuchs told a Tuesday Information Technology and Innovation Foundation forum. During 2001-2004, funding of universities shrank to 21 percent from 39 percent of DARPA’s total program, according to the Senate Armed Services Committee. Similarly, U.S. research and development funding has moved from large corporate labs to venture-funded small and mid-sized enterprises, she said. ITIF President Robert Atkinson said the U.S. innovation system has moved away from vertically integrated firms with big labs to networked firms linking interdependent technologies. A 50-year-old Department of Defense entity responsible for bringing the military new tools, DARPA adopted new methods to seed and encourage “new technology trajectories,” Fuchs said. The recast DARPA has a key role in coordinating “commercialization of research” across universities, start- ups and contractors, she said.