Technical Assessment: Data-Enabled Technology Watch and Horizon Scanning
Abstract
For more than five decades, the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) has been a world leader in science and technology (S and T); however, it currently faces a range of challenges to maintaining that leadership. Cutting-edge research and development (R and D) is increasingly dispersed internationally. It has also expanded beyond the domain of established universities and large, longstanding corporations, and DoD does not have the same depth of relationships with newer technology companies, start-ups, and even community laboratories where exciting breakthroughs are occurring today. Meanwhile, the raw number of participants, amount of technical information, and sources of relevant data are all growing rapidly, creating major challenges to finding relevant information. Thus, DoD has multiple challenges to staying informed of cutting-edge work and guiding its investments appropriately, all while the importance of doing so is increasing. Competitors are challenging DoDs technical advantage, and budget pressures are limiting DoDs ability to expand what it funds.(footnote 2)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Oct 01, 2015
- Accession Number
- AD1010211