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New Institute Study Concludes DARPA's Technology Reinvestment Project Produced Significant Benefits

1 September, 1999

Arlington, Va. - The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies today announced the publication of its latest study, A Review of the Technology Reinvestment Project - recently released by the Undersecretary for Science and Technology of the Department of Defense. The Technology Reinvestment Program (TRP), managed from 1993 to 1997 by the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), is the largest dual-use technology development effort ever undertaken by the Department of Defense (DoD). The study concluded that TRP produced significant benefits to both the DoD and the commercial sector.

According to the study, DARPA pioneered a new mode of technology development and created the innovative management tools needed to make the program work. These business processes also proved "crucial to program efficiency and to attract the interest of commercial industry." The report cites numerous examples of successful technologies and products developed under the program and, through interviews with industry, shows how government was able to work with the private sector on their own terms. Also reported are DARPA failures to fully exploit project successes and transition particular technologies to the military.

"I am convinced that DoD's efforts to effectively and affordably develop cutting-edge technologies must include acquisition techniques pioneered under the TRP," stated Potomac Institute for Policy Studies President Mike Swetnam.

In conducting this study, the Potomac Institute for Policy Studies took an honest and comprehensive look at the TRP; the first formal attempt to assess the successes and failures of the program against objective criteria. The review was conducted in sufficient depth to assess management techniques, processes and implementation, and emerging military and commercial products. To this end, the report presents the results of case studies conducted on 112 of the 131 technology development projects sponsored under the TRP. Outcomes and critiques are offered in each case study, and overarching conclusions and recommendations are provided.

The Potomac Institute for Policy Studies is an independent 501(c)(3) not-for-profit policy research institute that provides nonpartisan analysis of technology and technology policy to leaders in government, industry and academia. As the logo suggests, the Institute's work reflects the summation of technology's effects on business and government. With a reputation for fierce objectivity, the Institute has conducted studies on a wide range of technology and technology policy topics, including defense acquisition reform, dual use technology, space commercialization, cyber-terrorism and biological terrorism.