Basic Research Initiatives

The Vannevar Bush Faculty Fellowship (VBFF) program supports world-class researchers in scientific areas of critical importance to the DoW and ensures the cultivation of exceptional talent. Fellows’ research spans a broad set of emerging scientific areas with transformative potential, including quantum information science, novel engineered materials, cognitive neuroscience and human-machine interfaces, engineering biology, applied and computational mathematics, networks, machine learning and artificial intelligence, manufacturing science, and others. The prestigious research program delivers the most innovative and transformational scientific ideas of relevance to the DoW, from the top scientists in the Nation. The program fosters close connections between academia and the defense science and engineering (S&E) enterprise, a primary goal of Strategic Support for Basic Research (SSBR) efforts. Fellows provide the Department the deep scientific expertise from today’s leading research universities and collaborate with defense scientists and engineers. This program is being sunset; awarded projects will run their course with no new VBFF awards being made. The project includes support for the Laboratory-University Collaboration Initiative (LUCI) program, which is designed to team scientists in the DoW laboratories with top academic researchers from the programs sponsored or overseen by the Office of the Secretary of War (in particular, the VBFF and MURI fellows), in order to collaboratively perform research on a topic of their choice and explore early adoption of the scientific discoveries for military applications, platforms and systems, operations, and strategic roadmaps. Three-year grants allow a deep exchange of ideas between academic and DoW research communities, bring the most recent scientific breakthroughs closer to DoW relevance, and greatly expand the skills and knowledge of the S&E workforce within the laboratories. The project also supports the Bush Fellows Research Study Team (BRFST) program, designed to allow selected leaders in the academic research community to engage with the DoW at high levels, including briefings from MAJCOMs and site visits to military installations.

The Basic Research Initiatives Project supports oversight of basic research throughout the Department, as well as initiatives and pilot programs, in order to create conditions for defense basic research investments to produce high-payoff, transformative scientific breakthroughs for the Department. The project supports five strategic goals for Basic Research in the Under Secretary for War-Research and Engineering (USW-R&E) Science and Technology (S&T)/Foundations (Foundations/BR): (1) support the technology priorities set by the Department of War (OSW); (2) coordinate and conduct oversight of DoW-wide basic research programs; (3) improve the science and engineering workforce via tailored programs and public outreach; (4) enhance university-industry and university-government collaboration; and (5) engage with the academic research community and international partners. This includes Strategic Support for Basic Research (SSBR), which sustains the operations of the Foundations/BR and creates conditions for research policies and initiatives to be formulated and instantiated. It also includes several pilot programs and initiatives, including international research collaboration and cross-agency joint programs.

The Defense Experimental Program to Stimulate Competitive Research (DEPSCoR) is a capacity-building program designed to strengthen the basic research infrastructure at institutions of higher education in underutilized states and territories.

The Minerva Research Initiative supported social science research aimed at improving our basic understanding of security, broadly defined. All supported projects were university-based and unclassified. The goal was to improve DoW’s basic understanding of the social, cultural, behavioral, and political forces that shape regions of the world of strategic importance to the U.S.