The Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Finalizes Lab Review, Aims to Modernize R&D Enterprise

June 24, 2026 |

The Office of the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering has finalized a set of recommendations to modernize and reform the War Department's vast research enterprise, priming it to ease bureaucratic friction points and to rapidly deliver combat-ready technologies. The recommendations flow from a 90-day comprehensive assessment of the Department's laboratories, Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs) and University-Affiliated Research Centers (UARCs).

Secretary of War Pete Hegseth mandated a sweeping modernization of the U.S. defense innovation ecosystem to keep pace with a rapidly evolving, commercially driven global technology landscape. The Office of the Assistant Secretary of War for Science and Technology is executing on this mandate, completing 30 site visits, which represent nearly a third of the Department's research and development (R&D) enterprise. This assessment provided crucial ground-truth insights into systemic challenges and opportunities for reform across the enterprise.

"On one hand, our findings are reassuring, confirming that the research enterprise is fundamentally sound, with an unmatched concentration of world-class scientists, engineers and researchers who continue to drive capabilities to the tactical edge," said Assistant Secretary of War for Science and Technology Joseph Jewell, whose office led the assessment. "But the findings also show the increasing drag that aging, costly infrastructure imposes on labs and test centers striving to tackle changing missions and pursue emerging technologies. We have researchers pushing the boundaries of 21st century technologies in facilities built when the cathode-ray tube and jet propulsion were the state of the art."

According to Dr. Jewell, a key recommendation of the assessment is asking Congress to establish a dedicated laboratory military construction (MILCON) appropriation specifically for research, development, test and evaluation infrastructure. This would protect these funds from being reallocated to general MILCON needs. A related request to Congress would significantly increase the limit on minor MILCON funds, which labs require to respond quickly to new demands for integrated research and enhanced security.

"This assessment highlights how siloed the R&D enterprise has become as it expanded over the past half century," said Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering Emil Michael. "The labs are more service-centric, and the networks of university and FFRDC partners are not as integrated as they should be. This comprehensive review mandates our path forward to address the overriding challenge of delivering technology from lab to our warfighters rapidly, without sacrificing our rigorous standards for safety and combat effectiveness."

The review does not recommend consolidating or eliminating institutions, concluding that where overlap exists, it tends to be driven by mission need. The findings suggest that the way to reform the research enterprise is to fix the systemic issues surrounding its institutions, focusing on how authority, money and decisions flow, and how the institutions are funded, measured and governed.

Ultimately, the recommendations presented seek to eliminate the largest bureaucratic friction points, optimize resource allocation and empower the Department's unmatched scientific workforce. The report serves as the foundational blueprint to modernize the Department's R&D ecosystem and ensure the Department maintains a dominant and enduring technological advantage.

The assessment team is currently formalizing an implementation plan to address all identified findings and recommendations, with execution scheduled to begin shortly thereafter.

DHS S&T Licenses Groundbreaking Communications Technology

The U.S. Department of Homeland Security Science and Technology Directorate announced it has licensed the Radio Internet-Protocol Communications Module to two commercial partners: Christine Wireless, Inc. and Avtec, Inc. This new interoperability solution developed by the DHS First Responders Group allows response agencies to easily upgrade and reconfigure legacy communications systems at a low cost, potentially extending the life of the technology for decades. To learn more, go to http://www.dhs.gov/science-and-technology/news/2015/08/10/dhs-st-licenses-ric-m.

Gearing up for STEM Rocks!

by 2nd Lt. Darren Domingo
50th Space Wing Public Affairs

8/18/2015 - SCHRIEVER AIR FORCE BASE, Colo. -- Schriever kids can be rock stars this month; Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics rock stars that is.

STEM Rocks!, a festival that celebrates and increases interest in STEM fields, will be held from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m., Saturday, Aug. 29, at the Peterson Air and Space Museum.

Attendees will be able to participate in various activities related to the technical fields of STEM while having fun in a family-friendly environment.

"Essentially, STEM programs are important for our children and the younger generation," said Capt. Leilani Distaso, National Security Space Institute Space 200 assistant course director and military lead for the event. "This event is meant to reinforce interest in STEM related fields."

The event is for kids in kindergarten through 8th grade and their families.

This will be the fourth year STEM Rocks! has been held at Peterson Air Force Base. Alongside the military organizers for the event, additional partners and sponsors for STEM Rocks! are the Peterson Air and Space Museum and the Challenger Learning Center.

Distaso explained this year's event should be bigger and better than ever.

"I'm excited to have a huge turnout," she said. "This is for the community. [The event] was previously held at Buckley Air Force Base, but since we have a larger pool of military in the area, we generally have more participants."

There will be approximately 25 exhibits from agencies off and on base. Some of the many activities include crawl-through caves, rocket launching, underwater rovers, hurricane simulators, glider building, dinosaur investigations, interacting with wild animals and exploring with Legos®.

"[Kids] can look forward to hands-on activities like building rockets, working under water rovers and Explosive Ordnance Disposal demonstrations where they can drive the actual robot," said Tech. Sgt. James Mikkelsen, Space 200 flight chief.

Free giveaways will also be available along with the learning experience, Distaso said.

"Along with the free goodies (such as a free shirt), kids will be able to go through every single booth and learn about new things," said Distaso. "Some unique exhibits include magic shows from the United States Air Force Academy STEM team, a Security Forces K-9 exhibit and a USAFA jazz band ensemble."

Additionally, agencies from the local community, such as Boeing and Lockheed Martin, will set up their own specific booths for kids.

"I am excited to have all the great organizations coming back once again this year to provide the hands-on STEM experience to our school-aged kids," said Mikkelson.
Distaso explained the event is completely free to military families and wanted to encourage volunteers from Schriever to participate.

"We need volunteers for each of the days, especially the day of [the event]," she said. "Space operators would be a great help. Kids will ask questions and they would be able to answer it. They'll get a great thrill out of it."

Volunteers can help set up Aug. 28, the day before the main event, as well Aug. 29. Volunteers for the day of event will receive a free t-shirt.

STEM Rocks! is a free event, open to all Department of Defense ID card holders. For more information about the event or volunteer opportunities, call 719-556-4228.

Science and Technology Help Navy Prepare for Future Arctic Operations

By Bob Freeman, Office of Naval Research

ARLINGTON, Va. (NNS) -- On July 14, Chief of Naval Research Rear Adm. Mat Winter was the Navy keynote speaker at the Sixth Symposium on the Impacts of an Ice-Diminishing Arctic on Maritime and Naval Operations.

Winter discussed ONR's investments in Arctic science, stressing the importance of international partnership and science and technology diplomacy.

"The Office of Naval Research [ONR] has extensive research on computer modeling and prediction of sea waves, ice movement, seasonal ice cycles and air-ocean interaction," Winter said.

He highlighted a few current initiatives: an integrated program of observations and computer simulations to study the marginal ice zone (MIZ), the transition area between sea ice and the open ocean; an initiative to provide better physics for computer modeling of waves in the MIZ; experiments to understand the effects of changing Arctic conditions on low-frequency sound in the water and sonar operations; and research into vertical heat distribution and movement in the Arctic Ocean.

Winter also addressed ONR's research in issues like ship stability risk from ice accretion; improved hull design for ice operations; ice-phobic coatings to prevent ice from adhering to exposed material; and propellers and propulsors that are less vulnerable to ice damage.

Reflecting higher level strategic guidance, including the Navy's Arctic Roadmap, Winter emphasized the importance of partnerships in Arctic preparations. He noted that his researchers are uniquely postured to build partnerships, a practice he called "S&T diplomacy."

"Our ONR Global outreach mission allows our scientists to collaborate with other scientists around the world to discover the breakthrough technologies and build the scientific relationships vital to addressing the unique challenges in the harsh Arctic environment," Winter said.

Later in the day, ONR's Dr. Scott Harper, lead for the Navy's Arctic and Global Prediction initiatives, went into more detail about environmental research in his presentation. Harper noted that there are three main focus areas.

First is to develop an improved understanding of the changing Arctic environment, which will enable more accurate representation in environmental computer models and improved forecasting capabilities.

Harper explained that the loss of summer sea ice cover was allowing more interaction between the atmosphere, waves and ocean surface, creating much more dynamic conditions.

"Understanding how these things work together is the first step towards making reliable predictive models for better forecasting," he said.

The second focus is the development of technologies for sustained observations and measurements that will provide long-term monitoring, further scientific understanding and improve models. This focus includes the use of unmanned and autonomous vehicles and the collection of remote sensing data.

"We need to build the operational data set," Harper noted, "not only for the science that we need to do, but also to provide real-time awareness to operational forces."

Improved understanding and enhanced data collection support the third focus: the development of computer models that include the influence of ocean, atmosphere, ice and waves.

"The goal is to build system models that operate in high resolution, capture important Arctic processes and assimilate all this data," Harper said, "and then run these models out to the future to predict not only what will happen in the next few days, but to also provide seasonal guidance as well as looking out multi-year to decades to figure out how fast the ice will continue to diminish."

The Symposium was jointly sponsored by the U.S. Arctic Research Commission and the National Naval Ice Center, with funding support from ONR.

Bacterial Charity Work Thwarts Medical Treatments

Research reveals that bacterial altruism makes populations stronger than individuals

Drug resistant bacteria are a problem in many environments, especially healthcare institutions. While the ways in which these cells become resistant are understood at the cellular level, until now, the bacteria's survival strategies at the population level remained unclear.

A new study by James Collins and colleagues at Boston University and the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering at Harvard University reveals that a surprisingly small percentage of bacteria actually become highly resistant "supermutants." In fact, most of the bacteria in their study survived without being resistant to the effective dose of antibiotics in the environment. That is, the individual types of bacteria were not as resistant to the antibiotics as the entire population was.

"We were surprised by this initial result. It forced us to rethink our overall strategy to determine how antibiotic resistance develops and changes in a population over time," said Collins.

Further experiments revealed that, in addition to being drug resistant, the rare supermutants produced high levels of indole, a signaling molecule produced by healthy bacteria. Indole can also promote survival in harsh environments. When bacteria experience antibiotic stress, the dead and dying cells stop producing indole, which likely contributes to further cell death. By overproducing the chemical, supermutants can protect the more vulnerable bacteria by making enough to support a larger population of cells.

However, this indole production is costly for the supermutants, who grow more slowly than mutants that do not produce it. "This altruistic behavior supports a growing body of evidence that suggests single-celled organisms act as communities. We think study of these population-level behaviors will provide important new understanding of evolution dynamics," Collins explained.

These results confirm observations made by health practitioners everywhere: treatment of drug-resistant bacterial infections is more complicated and challenging than anyone thought. According to Collins, "Bacterial communities have an extensive arsenal of techniques to deal with antibiotic assault. By understanding the various strategies they use to survive, we may be able to develop more effective medical treatments."

The Collins lab receives support for these biodynamics studies through the National Science Foundation's Enhancing the Mathematical Sciences Workforce in the 21st Century training program. The research is featured on the cover of the September 2 issue of Nature.

-NSF-