据《美国国防部新闻》4月13日报道

美国国防部负责研究与工程发展的副部长芭芭拉·马克奎托在参议院拨款小组委员会作证说，创新单靠国防部不行，必须与学术界、外国伙伴和私营企业联合，才能与对手竞争。她称，要对潜在对手构成可信可靠的威慑，必须发展和部署新兴技术，必须在速度与规模上实现创新，探索灵活的创新伙伴机制，与私营企业、学术界、小企业（包括传统的黑人学院和大学）联合，重振美国研究能力，提升科学水平，促进技术发展，扩大与盟国的伙伴关系。她以国防部国防创新单元（DIU）成功实践为例，该机构专门与私营企业合作，把在研新技术用于军事应用。DIU已授予189家公司合同，其中75%是私营企业，32%的小企业首次承担国防部任务，10%的创新技术成果已经转为军用。美国国防部国防高级研究计划局（DARPA）局长斯蒂芬妮·汤普金斯以DARPA应对新冠疫情为例，强调构建学术界、工业界和政府联合“创新生态”的重要性。据称，该局早在10年前就已安排了核糖核酸疫苗的研究，在当时对这项技术的前景还很模糊，但来自于民口的项目经理很有前瞻性和洞察力，提出了超前研究疫苗的设想，在疫情肆虐的今天，这项先期研究成果派上了用场。

DOD Modernization Can’t Happen Alone, Defense Official Says

APRIL 13, 2021 | BY C. TODD LOPEZ, DOD NEWS

Technology development that’s competitive with that of adversaries is something the Defense Department can’t accomplish on its own. It must be done in partnership with academia, partner nations and the U.S. private sector technology industry, said the DOD official who’s performing the duties of the undersecretary of defense for research and engineering.

“Presenting a credible deterrent to potential adversaries requires us to develop and field emerging technologies,” Barbara McQuisto, told a Senate Appropriations subcommittee. “We must innovate at speed and scale. Success requires more than a go-it-alone approach. We must explore more flexible partnerships with the private sector and academia, with small businesses and [historically black colleges and universities]. We must reinvigorate our federal research capabilities, elevate science, promote technology and expand partnerships with our allies.”

One area where that effort is happening now, McQuisto said, is at the Defense Innovation Unit. The DIU was designed to more quickly bring technology being developed within the private sector into the DOD.

“With the activities to date, they have 189 companies now on contract,” McQuisto told senators. “75% are small business, 32% are first-time vendors and 10% have already transitioned into military use — and that’s the key, to be flexible and to work at speed, at commercial speed, in order to integrate the technology rapidly into the service.”

Also part of research and engineering is the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, which has been at the very edge of technology development of the Defense Department for more than 60 years, said Stefanie Tompkins, DARPA’s director.

Tompkins told senators DARPA has partnered with academia and the private sector to bring to fruition technologies, including stealth, precision-guided weapons, unmanned aerial vehicles, the internet, automated voice recognition, language translation and GPS receivers. DARPA’s role today is equally important, she said.

“At DARPA, we think not just about scientific and engineering innovation, though, but also about the ‘innovation ecosystem.’ That ecosystem includes many overlapping and adjacent communities from academia, industry and government,” she said.

At DARPA, she said, program managers come from outside DARPA, do time within the organization on specific projects, and then return to other places in government, academia or the private sector. In the process of doing that, they enrich both DARPA and the organization from which they came.

A recent example of the value of DARPA, Tompkins said, is with the fight against COVID-19. When she was serving at DARPA about five years ago, she said she often discussed ongoing investments and work DARPA had been involved in regarding messenger RNA vaccines. Messenger RNA, or mRNA, induces the body to produce some harmless spike protein, enough to prime the immune system to react if it later encounters the real virus.

“mRNA vaccines are pretty much a household word today, but at the time, they were much, much more obscure,” she said.

The DARPA investments in mRNA vaccines at the time were based on insight from forward-thinking program managers who saw value in mRNA vaccines for both military use and for public health applications, she said.

“The research that DARPA first initiated more than a decade ago is now playing a leading and catalytic role in today’s fight against COVID-19,” she said.

Today, Tompkins said, DARPA is involved in vaccines and diagnostics, defensive and offensive hypersonic technologies, artificial intelligence, quantum systems, microelectronics solutions and more.

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