NEW SCIENCE CLUB
THE FLOOR IS OPEN
Business and academic collaborators talk about Army priorities during a November 2015 open house at APG. ARL was designed explicitly to get industry and academia more involved in Army research that, during the Cold War, was compartmentalized and not particularly open to industry.
reviews and see what you did last year. Te collaboration means you and I are going to work together because we have mutual interests in this science or tech- nology. And if I don’t do my part and you don’t do your part, this whole thing is going to collapse; it won’t work. It’s interdependence.”
During the Cold War, for both security and ethical reasons—not wanting to give one defense contractor an advan- tage over another—there were limits on cooperation with the private sector. “We worked with industry at arm’s length,” said Dr. Troy Alexander, ARL’s associate for strategic planning, in an interview at ARL headquarters at the Adelphi Laboratory Center.
After 9/11, during the wars in Afghani- stan and Iraq, ARL became less focused on basic research and got involved in solving immediate problems on the battlefield, such as improvised explosive devices. ARL had a major role in devel- oping Mine Resistant Ambush Protected vehicles.
But as U.S. engagement in the wars winds down, ARL is turning its attention back to basic research, which has meant mov- ing toward an open campus. “Tis is
180 Army AL&T Magazine
something new for DOD,” Alexander said.
Te idea behind the open campus is that removing barriers would clear the way for cutting-edge research, especially in areas where the private sector has had a big head start. ARL seeks to leverage the substantial brainpower available in indus- try, academia and small business to build a “science and technology ecosystem” that will fuel breakthroughs in basic and applied research that can directly help the Soldier. Industry, universities, small busi- nesses and other government laboratories benefit from access to ARL’s researchers and unique technical facilities.
Te engine powering this collaborative effort
is the CRADA. Te agreement
provides no funding to industry or aca- demia—each participant brings its own. Te CRADA just sets the rules for the collaboration. “Te unique thing about this is this is not a funding vehicle,” said Alexander. “In the CRADA there’s no exchange of funds. So everybody has skin in the game. And there’s a mutual benefit from both sides, both the Army side and the industrial side, to work this.”
CRADAs have existed since 1986. But Dr. Tomas Russell, who became ARL
director in March 2013, has pushed them as the key to the lab’s partnerships with industry, small business and universities. Te lab’s relationship with industry “was slowly changing,” said Forch, “but we really wanted to accelerate the change. … Tere’s been just an enormous amount of progress in the three years that [Russell has] been here.”
Te CRADAs allow Army and private- sector researchers to set the terms for who does what research, who gets intellec- tual property rights, who gets to develop what and for how long. For industry and academia, “there’s mutual benefit,” said Alexander. “I can help guide this as well as the Army can help guide this, and so we’re working together to find the best technical solution for the problem.”
And a breakthrough in the lab today could save the life of a Soldier tomorrow.
“We always say we work for the ‘Army after next,’ ” Alexander said, “not neces- sarily the Army fielded today.”
For more information, go to the ARL website:
http://www.arl.army.mil/www/default. cfm. For a historical tour of Army AL&T over the last 55 years, go to the Army AL&T archives at
http://asc.army.mil/web/ magazine/alt-magazine-archive/.
July-September 2016
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