Communities of Interest: Collaborating on Technology Challenges

The technological superiority that we and our partners and allies have enjoyed for the past 50 years can no longer be assured, and recognition of this requires a new approach to research and engineering. We must open our science and technology aperture and employ much greater collaboration in making our technology investment decisions. Simply, the Department of Defense (DoD) Research and Engineering (R&E) Enterprise (Table 1) must deliver a more coordinated and coherent R&E program, across all components reaching beyond the DoD to include our National Laboratories, colleges and universities, our national industrial base and our global partners and allies. Data may move at the speed of light, but decisions move at the speed of trust. Guiding DoD s approach are three foundational documents designed to build the trust to enhance the speed and quality of our decisions, development and deployment, provide strategic direction to the DoD R&E Enterprise and outline the framework for achieving our objectives. Published in Defense AT&L p32-37 Mar-Apr 2015.