WASHINGTON, Sept. 16, 2016 — Future Defense Department technological superiority hinges on the department’s ability to out-innovate its adversaries, rethink how it sources technology and perhaps rethink its models for product delivery, the assistant secretary of defense for research and engineering said here yesterday.
Stephen P. Welby addressed an audience at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, discussing research and development across the defense enterprise.
Such superiority also will require a DoD science and technology, or S&T, enterprise that is tuned to support sustained research in fundamental technologies and quickly leverage emerging technical opportunities to address warfighter needs, he added.
“We need to be open and agile, to leverage all potential sources of technical advantage, from our traditional industrial base, from nontraditional suppliers, and from academia to help to create competitive advantage,” Welby said.
DoD laboratories must be prepared to perform a key role in translating technical capabilities into solutions and concepts, the assistant secretary said, that will help meet warfighter needs and grow their capability to overmatch any threat.
Technology Convergence
Welby believes the department’s core technical engine is the DoD S&T community — the uniformed and civilian men and women who every day explore new scientific frontiers, advance military capabilities and critical military technologies and envision new military concepts. Read more
Source: www.defense.gov