Improving the Air Force Scientific Discovery Mission: Leveraging Best Practices in Basic Research Management: A Workshop Report (2015)

SESSION 1: APRIL 27-28, 2015

Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Air Force for Science, Technology, and Engineering—David Walker (SES)

David Walker (SES) began by stating that travel restrictions have been relaxed somewhat and that he feels restrictions are partly an “urban legend; he wants to delegate conference approval authority to technology directorates (TDs). AFOSR is Dr. Walker’s primary outreach to the international community and he does not want to hamper that by travel restrictions; this is a critical mission. Dr. Walker stated that AFOSR has gone through a lot of change over time. Over time the Air Force has tried to integrate AFOSR into the overall AFRL portfolio and strategy (i.e., 12 mission focuses). The Air Force wants to maintain a reasonable funding level for AFOSR; the target is to maintain funding of 61102F at no less than 15 percent of AFRL budget. From an AQR perspective, AFOSR has to provide long-reaching, wide aperture research and identify opportunities we do not know about. Further, AFOSR has the ability to go out and build connections between AFRL and the basic research community. According to Dr. Walker, 30 percent of 61102F funding is spent on in-house Air Force research and that this research is well-linked to the extramural program (e.g., centers of excellence). Dr. Walker stated that the FY15 budget for Air Force basic research was increased by $75 million by Congress. Dr. Walker then asked the question, how do we get ideas from AFOSR and academia into operations? Further, he wants to link research to Air Force core functions and strategic plans in the same way that there is a tight relationship between advanced technology development research and operational gaps. Dr. Walker expects AFOSR to be cognizant of Air Force problems and to align its portfolio accordingly—for example, key areas such as assured communications; positioning, navigation, and timing (PNT), cyber, high-temperature materials, and directed energy (DE).

Air Force Research Laboratory—Maj Gen Thomas Masiello, Commander

AFOSR is an integral part of the Air Force’s single Science and Technology (S&T) Enterprise, the Air Force Research Laboratory (AFRL). AFRL guides and focuses all S&T investment for the Air Force including basic and applied

vides guidance related to the implementation of financial tools which ensure financial data integrity across the labs. PK provides guidance concerning the establishment and execution of assistance and contractual instruments across the Center. DP provides guidance related to all personnel matters including hiring, firing, promotions, appraisals, and employee relations.

In their role as the CSF they disseminate and provide additional guidance for DoD, Air Force, and AFMC policies, as well as providing AFRL specific policies. To improve alignment with AFRL policies financial servicing was moved to the 88th ABW at WPAFB to ensure proper accounting controls beginning in FY14. Similarly to comply with Air Force Personnel Center realignments the Customer Service Representative (CSR) servicing of AFOSR personnel has been transferred to the 88ABW at WPAFB.

How Does Research Transition from Single-Investigator-Sponsored Grants into AFRL-Supported Efforts? How Does This Compare to Basic Research Performed by In-House Researchers?

While there is no formal process for the transition of single investigator grant research and in-house research there are many transition paths for single investigator sponsored grants to an AFRL sponsored lab effort. The key to transition is ensuring the research results are socialized through reports and one on one interactions between the PI and the TD S&Es leading applied research/advanced technology development research efforts. Investigators can transition/ sell Intellectual Property to entities already in the AF supply chain, Investigators can become suppliers to entities that already are in AF supply chain, or AFRL personnel can seek out single investigators with demonstrated basic research to address their S&T Gaps. The likelihood of successful transition of in-house basic research is greater for extramural work, because the path is more defined as it is normally tailored to address specific applied research/advanced technology development plans. Multiple transition paths enable smart balancing between basic research Tech Push and basic research Tech Pull.

Air Force Office of Scientific Research—Thomas Christian (SES), Director

Dr. Thomas Christian stated that AFOSR has funded 78 Nobel laureates over time. There is a host of strategic guidance that AFOSR follows. AFOSR believes in the “find, fund, forward” process (see Figure 1-1). Christian noted that AFOSR spends approximately 90 percent of its core funding domestically, but has offices overseas to better locate pertinent international research (London, Tokyo, Santiago). Efforts have been made to consciously integrate domestic and international efforts. According to Christian, AFOSR has only 32 program managers and wants to reach 40. In his mind, international programs officers are “forward deployed” and are “boots on the ground.” With respect to personnel and leadership, Dr. Christian noted that there have been four directors/acting directors over the past 2 years

AFOSR Basic Research Division—Col Robert Kraus, Chief

Col Robert Kraus noted that AFOSR business practices are now more digital, utilizing the AFRL enterprise business systems, whereas there used to be much more paper involved. According to Kraus, there are nine steps in the grant award process. AFRL uses four business systems to promote transparency and traceability. It takes 90 days to award a grant once a program officer recommends a proposal for funding. Required expenditure rates are burdensome for AFOSR, and it is seeking relief (with AFRL’s blessings). Although the enterprise business systems streamlined some processes, there has been an increase in administrative work for program officers (POs), which detracts from focusing on research. AFOSR, and the Air Force as a whole, has lost funding for administrative support; AFOSR program officers have had to shoulder additional administrative responsibilities, such as arranging conference approvals and coordinating proposal reviews. Additionally, AFOSR needs a technical librarian to do literature searches, etc. Kraus noted that AFOSR is doing a lot of work to determine what analytics and metrics are useful. It is hoped that this will better inform spending priorities. Specifically, he noted, AFOSR has a science analytics working group that will evaluate those metrics that work well and that drive behaviors. Finally, Kraus noted that AFOSR is making use of social media, such as Facebook and YouTube.

Lt Col Victor Putz, Program Officer, EOARD Physics, AFOSR/IOE

Coming in at a time of relative austerity, I made the point that analytics and bibliometrics were excellent tools for a high-level “survey” view of the research landscape, but that they were in no way a substitute for strong subject-matter experts. Since ‘organic’ scientists, mathematicians, and engineers (SMEs) as POs were valuable, relationships with other SMEs (such as current or past PIs) are valuable for both awareness of current research, research funding opportunities (“what’s your great but risky idea that no one else wants to fund?”) and pointers to other researchers (“who else should we be talking to?”) Experts being shown as valuable resources, getting them together in one place (attending and funding conferences) is an extremely cost- and effort-efficient way to get very current and “live” views into the state of research. Gen Welch asked Dr. Parra why one would need both journal access AND conference attendance. Dr. Parra’s point was that of time scales; journal access and bibliometrics will give you access to what has been going on (and a “larger-scale” view of the field), and conferences and experts will give you shorter-term “current” data on very specific directions of research. The analogy I wish I’d come up with for that is the idea of going on a road trip: Would you rather have a map (journals/analytics, showing you the whole path but fuzzy on details) or be able to stop and ask for directions (conferences/experts, giving you fine/close details but no large view)? Of course you would want both. I did not say this during the panel, though. Journal access remains a problem, although we are very glad to have the access we do. Time for journals and reading seems to be a slightly growing issue, with POs now doing more contract administration and less “looking for science.”

I made the comment that we needed items both of relevance to the Air Force and that appear to be good science, but that still represented a “risk spectrum”—only choosing grants that directly aligned with current AFRL research projects would be “safe and useful,” but would likely result in evolutionary improvements rather than “risky” investments that might potentially address a mission function and could produce nothing at all . . . or a revolutionary capability. From an international perspective, some mechanical parts of the process dictated by higher offices (grants. gov, the System for Award Management (SAM) registration) cause difficulties with international registrants that result in a great deal of frustration. Similarly, while we can fund workshops and conferences, we have enough restrictions (in how money can be spent, etc.) that applicants often get very frustrated. International offices still face some difficulties with foreign universities being distrustful of accepting U.S. military funds (the anecdote was an application from the University of Dresden, which wanted some sort of legal assurance that nothing that resulted from the grant could ever be used in weapons—obviously an unfulfillable requirement).

John W. Luginsland, Program Officer, Laser and Optical Physics, AFOSR/RTB

I was on the “Find” mission panel. Much of the finding panel discussion centered about how/why we thought we were finding the best people and projects to fund. The answers to this split into two main discussion threads: conferences and analytics. First, the critical need to go to conferences, which is the traditional path for finding high quality research, was emphasized. Conferences provide a number of advantages, including: 1. finding out about breakthroughs months to years before a result is published in the archival literature, 2. getting to see the community’s response to your PIs and their research, such as seeing who collaborates with whom, and 3. being introduced to new ideas you didn’t even know you were interested in. Second, the discussion highlighted the important potential of analytics to help POs sort through the deluge of data from the published literature, at the least, and with technical progress in the science of analytics, potentially identify new researchers via analytics in the future. Dr. Parra used the term “cognitive bias” as something to be fought in finding new people, and I think that both conferences and analytics support this fight against cognitive bias. There was discussion of how easy/hard it is to go to conferences, and some discussion of how we interact with researchers in the other TDs - conferences play a role here, too, but there was also an important discussion of AFRL/AFOSR PO introducing their PIs to AFRL TD staff, and vice versa. There was some discussion of how individual POs work more or less closely with AFRL’s other TDs, and how these personal interactions are important, but there is a lack of formal procedures to drive these interactions. This lack of formal produces does have a benefit in offering flexibility as the wide variety of fields that AFOSR funds have different cultures and collaboration styles. Finally, I would have liked to have a more robust discussion of AFOSR’s interaction with professional societies, which I believe can play a critical role in the find mission. However, I think

we have some internal work on how to best interact and serve with the professional societies while maintaining and meeting the ethics standards from JA. While there is a strong internal component to this, it might be good for the committee to weigh in on if they believe the interaction and professional development that the societies offer is important, and in what ways.

Michael R. Berman, Ph. D., Program Officer, Molecular Dynamics and Theoretical Chemistry, AFOSR/RTE

During the session with the Air Force Studies Board last week, Gen. Welch asked the question, “How do we know if we are attracting the best people to propose to AFOSR?” I wanted to provide the following input. Many AFOSR programs have developed positive reputations in the scientific community, so that in addition to POs going out to find the best, top scientists come to us as well, based on our opportunities and our program’s reputations. For example, this year my program had inquiries from 25 excellent scientists about our Young Investigator Program. The following excerpt from an email that I just received demonstrates this point, and I think it is instructive: “I am just starting as an assistant professor at Columbia University and I wanted to touch base with you since both Al Wagner (DOE) and Elaine Oran (Naval Research Laboratory [NRL]) had independently suggested I start a dialogue about your program. In case you would find it helpful, I have included a brief description of my background and my research interests below this email; my CV attached and website below also provide additional information.”

Rickey Lawrence, Chief, Finance, AFOSR/RPF

The issue surrounding the poor expenditure rates in relation to basic research stem from several issues. The first is the move away from scheduled payments in FY2011 to invoicing, which created a problem because it took time for many universities to get registered in Wide Area Workflow (WAWF), an Air Force invoicing system. Second, grants are not subject to the Prompt Payment Act, meaning that if an invoice isn’t paid within 30 days, the Air Force incurs interest. Third, the huge backlog of cash-on-hand at universities, combined with their failure to put these funds in interest-bearing accounts (which drove the Air Force to change to invoicing), had resulted in millions of dollars sitting on grants that had to be paid through WAWF before later year funds could be disbursed. For example, an FY2013 grant that has two option years may still have unexpended FY2013 funds on it, even though additional FY2014 and FY2015 funding may have also been obligated. The university is required to finish expending FY2013 funding before it can start expending FY2014 and FY2015 option year funds. This means that the latter year funding will sit unexpended for months or years. Fourth, our recent visits to certain universities revealed a lack of communication between the grantees (the PIs), their university business offices, and AFOSR. While we have been communicating to the grantees the importance of quickly expending funds, that message does not seem to be getting to the business offices. We recently sent the business offices a copy of expenditure goals and a memorandum reiterating that their lack of timely expenditures could result in funding cuts to their grants. Many of the business offices were not meeting with their grantees on a regular basis to review the execution of grants, and we believe our continuing efforts to heighten business offices’ awareness of the issue will help correct some of the problem.

Finally, part of the problem in meeting expenditure goals has been self-inflicted by DoD. The current goals followed by the Office of the Secretary of Defense (OSD) are not appropriate for a basic research program. They tend to be based on operations and management (O&M) budgets being funded beginning on October 1 of each fiscal year. While meeting with the universities, they informed us that getting their grant funding later in the year causes significant problems for them, including their inability to hire qualified students to conduct research. By the time they received a grant and associated funding in the spring or summer, qualified students were already assigned else-

where, and the university is forced to delay hiring and research, which delays its ability to invoice AFOSR. If funding was granted earlier in the fiscal year, the problem would be alleviated because the universities could more quickly hire students and start the research. While AFOSR requests adequate funding while under Continuing Resolution authority (CRA), the funding of grants is not considered critical since research is an ongoing process, resulting in AFOSR receiving a fraction of funding requested. In addition, when funding is issued under a CRA, it doesn’t come down to AFOSR but rather goes to the MAJCOM and AFRL HQ, both which decide who gets what, creating more opportunities to further erode CRA funding to AFOSR.

The current 6.1 expenditure goals that OSD has set are not achievable for AFOSR, based on the nature of the spending pattern of the basic research program. Instead, AFOSR has worked with AFRL/FM to create new, realistic expenditure goals that OSD should allow AFOSR and AFRL to use. A special exception should be written in the regulations to deal with the grant process in reference to fund execution. In addition, RDT&E funding is considered a 2-year appropriation, yet AFOSR is required to obligate a fiscal year’s funds on grants as if they were a 1-year appropriation; this artificial constraint further exacerbates the expenditure problem.

The nature of the University Research Imitative (61103F) program is such that a grant, when issued to a university, many times has that organization partnering with other entities in the conduct of research. The main grantee, the external organization receiving the grant from AFOSR, cannot invoice AFOSR until the other entities it has partnered with invoice them. This trail of invoicing has a tremendous impact on expenditure rates for the extramural program. AFOSR studied the NSF model wherein they issue multiple grants, one to each of the partnering entities in addition to the external organization, thereby significantly improving the expenditure of funds in their extramural program. While somewhat effective and potentially valuable to AFOSR, we believe this would represent a significant increase in workload, roughly 400 percent, with a large increase in contracting personnel.

Tatjana Curcic, Program Officer, Atomic and Molecular Physics, AFOSR/RTB

I was on the “Forwarding” panel and gave the example of the cold-atom research at AFRL, for future precision navigation capabilities in GPS-denied environments, its history and the role that AFOSR played in this research program since its inception. Let me know if you would like me to try to summarize that separately. The other comment that I remember clearly is my response to Dr. Godfrey’s question at the end, and here is how I would summarize it (with some additional comments): (1) AFOSR has always been a lean organization, but today it’s bare bones, and there is no end in sight to the worrisome trend (example: recent significant reduction of IT support). AFOSR’s operational costs (i.e., overhead) were at about 10% of the total budget four years ago, and today that number is down to 6.5 percent. It is perhaps enlightening to put that in perspective by comparing with similar organizations. What I have recently learned (unverified) is that ONR is at about 9-10 percent, ARO at over 20 percent, HSARPA at around 20 percent, and DARPA at about 15 percent. It might be interesting to look at NSF and DOE’s Office of Science as well. What about other AFRL TDs? (2) We are all feeling the squeeze very much. AFOSR POs spend much of their time doing administrative work that not only does not require a PhD, but could be accomplished, probably more effectively, by a college grad or even a smart high-school grad. More importantly, this is the time taken away from the part of the mission that only our highly trained (and expensive) experts (POs) can do—read and evaluate scientific literature and interact with the research community, so that we can best identify future directions for our programs and evaluate present investment and thus pave the way for critical technology developments for the USAF in the future, much like what we did for the cold-atom-based precision navigation technology. This is not a good use of Air Force resources.

Kent Miller, Program Officer, Space Sciences, AFOSR/RTB

I agree with the comments from the others, but would like to add one other observation. I am feeling a pull from the laboratories toward applied research under the instructions to become “more relevant.” I thought that was also true in the questions to my panel on transitions. It was probably to a large part because of a specific example that a member of the Studies Board was discussing with a panel member. There are probably special cases where AFOSR is able to respond to rapid response requests, but that is the exception. In most of our portfolios, if we are positioning our research for immediate relevance or “rapid response,” we are dealing with evolutionary research, not revolutionary.

Joseph Janni

The Air Force Office of Scientific Research (AFOSR) has an exemplary track record of discovering and selecting the most promising basic research ideas from Universities, the Air Force laboratory system, and industry. AFOSR then sponsors the best ideas with the greatest likelihood of benefitting the AF of tomorrow. This process is guided by the long-term needs of the AF. The approach of actively soliciting, evaluating, and funding scientific breakthroughs well before they are mainstream research areas has resulted in technologies that have proven to be of great benefit to the AF.

The complete list of AFOSR achievements is much too long to delineate here.

From its’ inception, the Air Force has been a highly technical organization, dependent upon scientific and technical advances to remain dominant first in the air domain, then space, and recently cyberspace. This need for technical dominance led to the establishment of AFOSR over 65 years ago, with great success. AFOSR is uniquely capable of understanding and pursuing long-term scientific trends as proven by the historical record. Degrading this capability, as was attempted last year, would diminish the long term health and capability of the Air Force.

AFOSR must be strengthened and solidly supported by senior AF leadership. Efforts to reorient basic research funding toward more applied activities would be a serious and shortsighted mistake. Mediocre management approaches and weak administrative methods must not be implemented under the guise of efficiency, nor arbitrary reorganizations imposed that would have unintended deleterious results.

The success of Air Force basic research depends on the high-level education, professional background, meticulous methodology, and insightful approaches of the organizational leadership and POs (previously program managers) in selecting the most promising basic research proposals. These are necessary talents that AFOSR POs have always had and that AFOSR’s senior leadership must retain the authority to exercise. Recent drastic reductions in the number of POs are degrading capabilities and must be reversed.

An imbedded contracting office is crucial to success. AFOSR is the basic research manager of the Air Force, carrying out long-term research by informing universities, industry, and the AFRL of long-term requirements via broad-agency announcements, intra-laboratory communications, and conferences. Research proposals are then submitted to AFOSR and evaluated by AFOSR POs using accepted methodology. When approved, the proposals are sent to the AFOSR contracting office for prompt award. It is absolutely critical that the POs and contracting personnel work closely together in a timely manner. This process requires contracting personnel that are co-located with the POs and a contracting office imbedded with AFOSR. Long distance procurement would not work.

Management of contracting was removed from the direct authority of AFOSR’s director in 2007, diluting the concept of the imbedded contracting office. This function now reports to the AFRL Contracting Functional instead of the AFOSR director. The rationale should be reassessed and line authority returned to the director. These comments also apply to finance and personnel.

The single manager method has been very successful. It enables ready implementation of OSD and Air Force guidance, and provides focus, and cohesive trend management across the Air Force.

Some unvarnished history. During my tenure as AFOSR Director the teamwork between all Chief Scientists, technical personnel, and the AFRL Commander was excellent. Sadly that was not the case with the “support” organizations at WPAFB such as Plans and Programs, Finance, and Contracting. They were uncooperative, intransigent, and relentless in their efforts to diminish and degrade AFOSR. It was blatant parochialism and an attempt to acquire more power and funds. That attitude seems to still exist but must be changed to be more supportive, constructive, and positive.

Lyle H. Schwartz

Collectively, broad technical program areas selected for emphasis in 6.1 must reflect both opportunity and need. This selection process requires high-level strategic planning, especially by the AFOSR director in collaboration with chief scientists from throughout AFRL, and demands personnel of strong but wide ranging background.

Individuals who are at the heart of specific program topic selection, the POs, are expected to build as well as manage programs. POs who first spend some time in one of the DoD laboratories have a leg up in the area of understanding the mission aspect of their work. Their skillset is often supported by POs with university background (either permanent transition or IPA visitor status) and those who have spent some time in industrial settings. While it is increasingly difficult to cover all technical areas, those areas selected must still be managed by technical experts with vision and a continually updated knowledge base. Regrettably, restrictions on travel opportunity and reduced program assistant support within AFOSR has led to less interaction with laboratory scientists and the rest of the extramural research community.

A critical component of the execution process is the need for a strong 6.1 program within the laboratory directorates. Only within the laboratory is there the talent, flexibility, and organization required to interact with the university community (the source of much forefront research) and with the developers and ultimate users of the technology products. This process is facilitated when the intramural and extramural programs are viewed as elements in an integrated program overseen by technical POs from AFOSR.

Patrick Carrick

There have been efforts of the Air Force and DoD in the last 4 years to become “more efficient” by shifting resources from people and support into the “mission.” The efforts of AFOSR to become a “more efficient” organization predated this Air Force/DoD push, with significant results for the optimization of AFOSR as the premier “find, fund, forward” science and technology organization. This increased optimization was driven by the transition from paper into electronic program documentation, an electronic tracking system to optimize approval and funding of grants and contracts, and improved IT and communication processes to interact with the Air Force and overall national and international scientific communities. However, when a lean, efficient organization is forced to “become more lean” by a parent organization, the result is actually reduction in overall efficiency. This is evidenced by the lack of hiring authority, reduction in UMD slots, loss of hiring authority for IPAs, and severe restriction of contractor support that AFOSR experienced over the last 5 years. Lack of ability to hire new program managers with superior experience, vision, and connection to their scientific community will lead to degraded decisions on their part about new scientific trends, poor funding decisions, and decreasing respect of the scientific community and DoD. In addition to considerable degradation in program manager hiring and reduced quality, the loss of senior executive oversight of the vast majority of the scientific and technical decision making processes has led to degraded interaction at the same senior level with like-organizations within DoD and the federal government. Lack of senior-level engagement at a technical level will ultimately jeopardize the ability of AFOSR to coordinate strategy within the Air Force, DoD, and other federal agencies and degrade high-level funding decisions about the future direction of Air Force capabilities.

In addition, efforts to become “more lean” and efficient in supervisory chains led to considerable pressure to make AFOSR support organizations (contracting, finance, human resources) report directly to (or actually stationed at) the parent organization more than 450 miles away. Having a highly integrated and self-reliant organization separate out key functional and executing groups (contracting, finance) from the decision and action groups (leadership and program managers) will lead to a less efficient organization. It is especially important to keep a close, engaged contracting and finance shop completely integrated with the program managers and AFOSR leadership.

Current trends in acceleration of scientific and technical advancement worldwide will likely to continue for some time. This makes the ability to engage and cooperate with international colleagues increasingly important. AFOSR is strongly positioned in global engagement, with offices in three international locations. In addition, international cooperation has a political aspect. AFOSR is uniquely positioned within the Air Force for across-the-board cooperation with nearly any country, as issuance of grants and cooperative programs in basic research do not require specific country-to-country agreements. The location of AFOSR in the Washington, D.C., region also strengthens this interaction, as many embassies in the United States, located in Washington, have liaisons with scientific and technical responsibilities. This combination of ease-of-interaction with ease-of-access to international embassy scientific and technical staff makes AFOSR a valuable commodity for the Air Force.

Tom Russell

Thomas Russell believes that the AFOSR director needs as much autonomy to operate as the POs do. Then Maj Gen Pawlikowski, AFRL/CC, recognized this fact. The reduction in IPAs was related to overall reduction in SESs by Secretary Gates, but this has since been rescinded. Dr. Russell believes that centralization of basic research at AFRL (or ARL) headquarters is not healthy; there needs to be representation in Silicon Valley, Research Triangle, and other centers of innovation. The force of the Air Force, in his opinion, in 2025 has largely already been built; there is very little that AFRL and AFOSR will contribute to this force. To its detriment, according to Russell, the Air Force has become very near-term focused; the Army is actually more long-term focused. In his opinion, there is no real budget issue with respect to 6.1; these are artificially created. The center of science is moving to Asia today. Basic research is heterogeneous (i.e., is different for each Service). With respect to personnel, Russell noted that ARL is using IPAs. AFOSR’s work-flow process is the best he has ever seen. Finally, during his tenure, administrative activities comprised 28 percent of a PO’s responsibilities.

Brendan Godfrey

AFOSR has a long history of identifying and funding outstanding research opportunities, highlighting important research advances funded by others, transitioning technologies, and building strong ties between academia and the Air Force, particularly AFRL. Establishing ties with young researchers is especially important, and AFOSR does so through its vigorous Young Investigator Program, its National Research Council postdoctoral program, and its extensive support for graduate students. Its international offices in Europe, Asia, and South America tap outstanding research overseas, build effective ties with overseas researchers, and create international goodwill. AFOSR has a collaborative, risk-taking culture. Its automated workflow and information management systems enhance its cost-effectiveness. AFOSR has by far the lowest overhead in AFRL.

Unfortunately, AFOSR’s mission performance and reputation recently have been challenged by several issues. The directorship has turned over repeatedly in the past 2 years, and senior leadership positions have been abolished, triggering otherwise needless and disruptive reorganizations. Several well-qualified POs have left AFOSR, in large part due to the recent ill-conceived attempt to move AFOSR to Dayton, Ohio, and, more generally, to declining morale. Numerous vacancies exist, reducing the overall effectiveness of grant selection, grant oversight, and technology transition. The highly effective IPA no longer is being used, compounding recruiting difficulties. Moreover, POs are not supported as effectively as in the past due to too few assistant program officers, wasteful travel restrictions, slow human and animal use determinations, and inadequate library access. Because timely contracting plays an important role in AFOSR mission performance, AFOSR contracting should report to the AFOSR director.

Robin Staffin, Director of Basic Research—Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering

In Staffin’s opinion, 6.1, 6.2, 6.3 research do not follow a simple linear model, although they are related. The relationship between the Office of Basic Research that he leads and AFOSR is a close one, given their proximity and relative sizes and missions in basic research. On the other hand, given its geographical distance and its heavy contract management workload, the relationship with AFRL is the more distant one of the Service laboratories. Staffin stated that it is his assessment that AFOSR is doing a good job in identifying and supporting transformative areas in basic research- but he wishes they had more program officers and assistant program officers. Further, Staffin is satisfied, and actually impressed with the scientific quality and expertise of the people working in AFOSR. Staffin said it was his impression that AFRL does not adequately appreciate the value that AFOSR brings to DOD science, or the caliber of its program officers, the importance of their work for the Air Force, and that more are needed. He noted that DOE laboratories have a widely recognized scientific legacy, that include such leaders as Oppenheimer, Lawrence, Teller, Panofsky, and Wilson; DoD laboratories do not emphasize their scientific legacy, and that he believes is a loss to many of their personnel. He would like to better understand the metric of success in DoD laboratories. Staffin noted his experience of DoD laboratories as being relatively stand-offish compared to other agency laboratories; and noted the irony that they come across to some in academia as more ivory tower than universities. Staffin reflected on the importance of laboratories in their being able to reach outside DoD and the United States, to maintain their scientific and engineering competitiveness.

Christopher Thomas (SES), Administrator—Defense Technical Information Service

Christopher Thomas spoke on public access impact on basic research, requirements, and benefits, and how DTIC’s products and services will change through making public access journals and data sets available to the public. DTIC’s mission is to provide essential technical RDT&E information rapidly, accurately, and reliably to support our DoD customers’ needs. Under DoDI 3200.12, DoD Scientific and Technical Information Program (August 22, 2013), and DoDM 3200.14, Principles and Operational Parameters of the DoD Scientific and Technical Information Program (STIP) (March 14, 2014), DTIC collects Scientific and Technical Information (STI) and disseminates it for the benefit of the DoD community, industry, and academia, to encourage the reuse of information. The White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP) memo “Increasing Access to the Results of Federally Funded Scientific Research” dated February 22, 2013, requires all federal agencies with over $100 million in annual research and development (R&D) expenditures to support increased public access to the results of research funded by the federal government, including peer-reviewed scholarly publications and digitally formatted scientific data arising from unclassified unlimited research necessary to validate the results and conclusions of the effort (with exceptions for national security, proprietary data, and data that would be more expensive to retain than it is worth).

The overarching goal is to accelerate scientific breakthroughs and innovation, promote entrepreneurship, and enhance economic growth and job creation. The benefit to DoD is increased access to government-wide scholarly publications and scientific data and cost savings to DoD organizations (no need to buy back DoD-funded content); industry will have increased visibility of DoD research priorities which provides the opportunity for industry to invest in DoD areas of interest. Under Secretary for Acquisition, Technology and Logistics, Mr. Frank Kendall, signed a memo on July 9, 2014, conveying support to the White House mandate and directing DoD compliance. The Defense Basic Research Advisory Group (DBRAG) is creating a directive-type memo to require public access (data management plan at the start of every effort, publications, and metadata and location of data sets submitted to DTIC) for intramural basic research, starting January 2016. Extramural research, which will require regulatory changes for contracts and grants, will come into effect January 2017. Then, in 2018 and 2019, public access requirements will expand to other areas besides basic research. DTIC is working with other agencies such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH), NSF, and DOE to use best practices. The DoD plan is at http://dtic.mil/dtic/pdf/DoD_PublicAccessPlan_Feb2015.pdf. The group at the workshop was very interested and discussed the need for a federated search of data sets, how to handle software associated with data sets, and the size of some of the data sets (such as wind tunnel data). Also discussed were the benefits of gathering public access articles in terms of providing POs with situational awareness of the field and analyzing the research being done in the department overall.

Christopher Fall, Assistant Director for Defense Programs—Office of Science and Technology Policy, Executive Office of the President

Christopher Fall noted that the new National Security Strategy was published in February 2015 and that a corresponding S&T strategy is in development.¹ OSTP’s role is not to set the science priorities for federal agencies, but to facilitate the process. Fall then discussed the legacy national security S&T enterprise challenges, including constrained budgets, workforce demographics, aging facilities, outdated processes, and governance. Falls observed that DoD is out-in-front on international research, but it is not clear how well this effort is coordinated. He noted that DoD’s Small Business Innovation Research (SBIR)/STTR programs are well run and suggested that DoD basic research grants include “broader impact” criteria.

Azar S. Ali, Chief Scientist—Pacific Air Forces

Pacific Air Forces (PACAF) has a large area of responsibility (AOR) that covers 10 time zones, 36 nations with 70 percent of the world’s population, over 1,000 languages, and over 50 percent of Earth’s surface. Seven of the ten largest standing militaries in the world are in PACAF’s AOR. Some of these militaries are very capable and have developed anti-access area denial strategies. DoD has recognized the many challenges facing PACAF and has made a deliberate effort to ‘Pivot to the Pacific.’ The PACAF Chief Scientist’s Office is hosting a Science and Technology Information Exchange, June 15-19, 2015, at Hickam Air Force Base, Hawaii. The intent is to engage the S&T community and the tremendous talent and resources of AFOSR, and in particular, to address some of the challenges facing PACAF. Three such challenges are the need for (1) Rapidly Converging Algorithms for Swarming Weapons Engaging Mobile Targets, (2) Constrained Algorithms for Apparent Random Tracks for Swarming Munitions Engaging an Integrated Air Defense System, and (3) Constrained Optimization Algorithms to Enable Logistics Flow in Support of Flexible Basing.

Janet S. Fender, Chief Scientist—Air Combat Command

Dr. Joseph Janni profoundly changed the culture of AFOSR, sharply focusing the organization on emerging Air Force technical requirements and establishing technology transition pathways. In fact, Dr. Janni set a precedent for directly transitioning 6.1 research to operational capabilities when AFOSR supported decision aids for the Airborne Laser program and when AFOSR research enhanced operational capabilities at the Maui Space Surveillance Site. Continuing that trend, AFOSR today directly supports the Air Force Weather Agency, now a wing in Air Combat Command (ACC). AFOSR also supports a post-doctoral research on flexible electronics for ACC/SG medical applications as well as ACC/PR personnel recovery (Combat Search and Rescue). AFOSR could energize innovation by focusing multi-disciplinary research on grand challenges for the Air Force. For example, enabling low SWaP, ultra-precision, stable timing would be a landmark accomplishment for AFOSR and revolutionize Air Force operations. Expanding the AFOSR rotational assignment program to offer tailored experiences at operational locations would certainly “blue” AFOSR program managers. Bringing transition partner presentations into AFOSR workshops could formalize pathways and expedite delivery of integrated capabilities by AFRL. AFOSR can play an important role in integrating research performed by multiple AFRL directorates—especially if focused on a grand challenge or enabling integrated capabilities.

Donald R. Erbschloe, Chief Scientist—Air Mobility Command

At first glance, the relationship between the basic research community, which explores new concepts and fundamental understanding, and the warfighter, who depends on proven, reliable, fielded technologies for mission execution, would seem to be, at best, one of distant, nodding acquaintance. However, AFOSR has a long and successful track record of engagement with the Air Force MAJCOMS. In Air Mobility Command the last two decades have seen productive partnerships in such areas as precision airdrop, fuel efficiency, algorithms for dynamic optimization, mitigation of radar clutter, and access to top international science. Basic research is the bedrock for Air Force science and technology. AFOSR informs the MAJCOMs on what is possible, and the MAJCOMs communicate needs and areas for potential applications.

J. Douglas Beason, Former Chief Scientist—Air Force Space Command

AFOSR plays an important role in insuring that warfighters have access to the world’s best weapons needed to win the fight. As combat becomes more sophisticated, new weapons’ capability increasingly depends on exploiting advanced technology. This advanced technology does not spring out of thin air or occur because some administrator says to “make it happen”; rather, advances in technology ultimately depend on investments made in basic research, and usually in areas focused on defense. But the traditional avenues for supporting and obtaining Air Force-focused basic research results are dwindling: the vast majority of commercial and industrial R&D is concentrated on shortterm, time-to-market products, and the infrastructure needed to conduct R&D outside of their market may not be sustained. Defense-oriented basic research in academia and government laboratories may be focused in areas not applicable to the Air Force—for example, extending pit or nuclear waste container lifetimes for DOE. And allocating basic research monies to individual AFRL directorates will result in focused, insular investments. As such, having AFOSR as a separate agency with a strategic knowledge of Air Force warfighting needs continues to be the optimum way of making basic research investments.

AFOSR is unique in its focus on 6.1 basic research for the Air Force. With some 70 Nobel Laureates included in its past award recipients, it has been highly successful in this mission. I believe that the current structure of AFOSR, as a separate directorate within AFRL, is effective in preserving its ability to focus on basic research without the pressure to slide towards more near-term directed research.

My expectations of AFOSR are first that it support basic research that will enable the Air Force to achieve new goals along its core missions, expand its capabilities, and address new challenges associated with activities in air, space, and cyber. These activities should be closely aligned with long-term mission needs and challenges as spelled out in our Strategic Vision and the master plans from each of the core function leads. Its second goal is to support basic research that is more bottoms-up, identifying potential new areas of exploration that may be advantageous to the Air Force, even if we have not yet identified it as a need. This is a careful balance between the directed and undirected, which requires extensive knowledge of developing fields and the imagination to see long-term utility in very early R&D. In general, I think AFOSR is meeting that need. However, it is always a good idea to carefully review research in each portfolio to determine what is fruitful and what needs to be redirected on a frequent basis. While AFOSR is strong in certain areas, a balanced portfolio may require more new work in emerging fields (e.g., cyber, autonomy, quantum).

In general, AFOSR works within the AFRL process to determine its research directions and funding expenditures each year. The chief scientist is invited to program reviews and to provide input as requested on particular topic areas. AFOSR has also provided extensive reviews of its international portfolio and operations. The chief scientist provides general support (e.g., advocacy for 6.1 research on the Air Staff) in my role in support of S&T for the Air Force.

By definition, AFOSR should be focused on the long-term basic research needed by the Air Force. It does, however, also need to ensure an effective transition path from successful basic research work to applied research, and advanced technology development is needed to move this work into practice. This can best be accomplished by a close working relationship with AFRL to identify the successful research that needs to be transitioned and creating a funding stream and program management to move that work forward. The Air Force has created a set of long-term challenges associated with contested environments (A2AD), hypersonics, directed energy, autonomy, unmanned systems, nanomaterials, and cyber security and reduced costs for operations across the board. Much of AFOSR’s portfolio is directed at these efforts; however, some more focused effort may need to be directed at specific gaps or opportunities in these areas. In addition, I expect that AFOSR may find many new opportunities for advancements that are not on this list, but which may greatly enhance our capabilities.

Morley O. Stone, Chief Technology Officer—Air Force Research Laboratory²

AFOSR is an integral part of AFRL. As the sole steward of basic research (6.1) funding in the Air Force, it has a unique and foundational role in the laboratory and the Air Force as a whole. That role is one of science and technology “scout”—that is, monitoring emerging fields in laboratories across the world and harvesting and directing these scientific breakthroughs to the greater Air Force science and technology enterprise. Just as important as its outward-facing role, AFOSR also plays an integral role in supporting intramural research within AFRL. By fostering the development of PIs within AFRL, it allows the laboratory to “grow” world-class researchers internally, creating deep, in-house technical expertise that is called on time and time again to solve the Air Force’s most challenging problems.

My comments to the panel will be based on the various capacities in which I have interacted with AFOSR. First, I interacted with AFOSR as a PI—my interactions were almost exclusively at the PI to PO level. Later in my career as the chief scientist of the Human Performance Wing, my interactions were with AFOSR leadership and shifted to more strategic interactions involving the development of human capital (i.e., NRC post-doctoral program and the defining of mutually agreed upon future joint technical ventures, such as, neuroscience and synthetic biology).

The topic of congressional involvement with basic research institutions like AFOSR focuses primarily on overall funding levels and secondarily on topical research areas. At a practical level, basic research is a funding mechanism for universities in congressional home districts. Many members may have specific interests with their individual academic institutions and various research areas. From a DoD perspective, a desirable situation is one where members’ interests align with DoD’s interests and needs. There are situations where relevant committee staff may recommend to members against certain special interests if there is not a strong alignment with DoD or if proposed funding on certain topical areas will lead to inefficient use of limited resources. To ensure a higher probability of congressional action, it is important that the authorizing staff be linked to the appropriations staff in both the Senate and the House. Generally speaking, congressional support for basic research is positive when basic research can be linked ultimately to successful warfighter support.

Dennis Wirtz, Vice Provost of Research, Johns Hopkins University

Johns Hopkins University (JHU) is the only school with over $ 1 billion ($1.7 billion) in annual research funding. Concerns about increasing administrative burdens on young researchers and may drive away researchers. We are not that good at landing the larger center grants. Until recently, we could count on faculty to be competitive on their own in securing funding without institutional assistance. Within the last 5 years, faculty have had to spend more time writing proposals. We think there is a research “valley of death,” and we try to assist faculty in navigating through this. JHU has a relatively small number of grants from AFOSR; it has always been relatively easier to obtain grants from NIH and NSF, and so did not have to make efforts to approach other government agencies for grants. This is starting to change. JHU is trying to expose faculty more and more to information sessions to demystify organizations like DARPA. There are avenues and areas where DoD agencies can team together with academia (joint programs).

Bill Bonvillian, Director, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Washington, D.C. Office

One significant research management question is how to better build strong basic research efforts into applied projects. Advanced manufacturing is the federal government’s major new applied R&D initiative of the past 5 years, now being funded at over $500 million per year, with bipartisan support. DoD has been the leading agency involved because of the department’s profound stake in U.S. manufacturing capability. After briefly noting core lessons about the nature of the U.S. manufacturing challenge, the discussion turned to new R&D system models designed to deal with it. The main focus of the initiative has been on creating new collaborative manufacturing institutes on a German Fraunhofer model, to perform a technology testing and de-risking role. But attention is now shifting to creating ongoing industry-government-university technology strategies for new advanced manufacturing technology paradigms. And the focus is also now growing on how to integrate research at four agencies, including DoD, into this system of institutes and collaborative strategies. This could present an interesting new approach on how this problem of better integrating a strong research element into an applied project model. Building a cross-agency research collaboration enables leveraging of agency research investments, and avoids the “stranded technology” issues that could face the institutes, because they will be linked to an R&D system to sustain an ongoing flow of technology ideas. The industry-university- government collaboration model, the collaborative technology strategy, and the cross-agency R&D models being developed in advanced manufacturing could inform other areas, including the new DoD Defense Innovation Initiative.

Stephen E. Cross, Executive Vice President for Research, Georgia Institute of Technology

The Georgia Institute of Technology has a long-standing and valued relationship with AFOSR. As the third (or possibly now second)-highest funded AFOSR university, Georgia Tech currently has 45 active, competitively selected

projects with $45 million in total funding spanning research in aerospace, information science and technology, materials, sensors, and system technologies. Research at Georgia Tech is guided by a strategy that combines thought leadership, collaborative partnerships, and translation impact. Research in core areas is use-inspired and focused on grand challenges. Shared equipment facilities and administrative services support reduction in cost and administrative burden. There is a long-standing culture between departments to support interdisciplinary research in venues for concurrent discovery, application, and deployment. Special attention is paid to mentoring of junior faculty, and seed grants are used to help them grow new research programs in areas of strategic importance. Georgia Tech actively seeks embedded sponsor presence. In the past 3 years, 10 Fortune 500 companies have established innovation centers on the campus. Many of the practices pursued at Georgia Tech should be applicable to AFOSR, including continued assurance of relevancy of research to critical Air Force needs, reduction of administrative burden to PIs as well as AFOSR program managers, a greater focus on young investigators with mentoring support for “ease of application,” and creative means to facilitate PI and program manager engagement with operational personnel (e.g., workshops and conferences on or near operational bases). Endorsement of the recent NSF report on reduction of investigator administrative burden is encouraged, as is the continued presence of AFOSR in the D.C. area.