Hacking for Defense 2.0 for ONR NEPTUNE and NURP Programs
Abstract
The Office of Naval Research (ONR) sponsors research with high potential to impact the future Department of Navy (DoN) capability. Two multi-university ONR programs, in particular, support fundamental research and help align that research to Navy needs to facilitate future lab-to-market transitions: (1) the Naval Enterprise Partnership Teaming with Universities for National Entrepreneurship (NEPTUNE) and (2) the Naval Undersea Warfare Program (NURP). In the 2017-2020 grant, the Hacking for Defense (H4D) Project at Stanford University has supported NEPTUNE and NURP by educating, training, and supporting basic researchers in applying their academic research to Navy use-cases. The outcome has been accelerating research transitions into applied research or in moving from lab to market/capability. Stanford H4D proposes four core tasks: 1) ONR-affiliated training in H4D methods; 2) Proposal support to NEPTUNE/NURP principle investigators and students; 3) executing the Hacking for Defense course at Stanford; 4) Engaging the military-affiliated community. Each of these tasks will contribute to ONR by enabling PIs and students to: 1.Uncover a deep unmet Navy user need and to explore a variety of ways academic research can be leveraged to address this need through follow-on research activities or the commercialization of the research/technology, and to articulate the fit between Navy need and academic research/technology using the Mission Model Canvas.2.Identify key risks of applying research/technology to the Navy based on the user experiments and learning accomplished during the NEPTUNE/NURP program.3.Incorporate learning on how academic research can be applied to meet real world Navy needs into developing a research agenda that will eventually lead to solving those needs.The application of the H4D method to ONR-sponsored research and Navy use-cases has five core values: A Use-Case-Centric Approach to Research: Helping researchers develop their projects innovation process to transfer their research/technology into a defense capability;Trial-and-Error Culture: Enlightened trial-and-error techniques to determine value of applying project research and technology to the Navy, as a companion to conducting academic-based research;Lean Methodology/Hacking for Defense Methodology: Hypothesis-driven approach to Navy-user development. Determine the value of applying research/technology by testing/experimenting with core assumptions/hypotheses of why and how Navy users would benefit from the research, and doing so in the fasted, lowest-cost way;Tackling Challenging Navy Problems in a Collaborative Environment: Research projects develop feasibility and validation strategies by interacting in a supportive ecosystem consisting of DoN personnel and peer researchers across over a dozen schools;Productive, Objective-Driven Action, Directed by Data: Bias of goal driven-action, directed by data, but never confusing activity with progressThe proposed projectoutlines a three-year plan for the Hacking for Defense Program at Stanford University to support the ONR priorities and objectives as part of the ONR NEPTUNE and NURP Programs.This project will be carried out under Prof.Majumdars (PI) and Prof. Byers (Co-PI) supervision.
Document Details
- Document Type
- DoD Grant Award
- Publication Date
- Mar 15, 2021
- Source ID
- N000142112101
Entities
People
- Arun Majumdar
Organizations
- Office of Naval Research
- Stanford University
- United States Navy