DARPA Seeks Innovators to Accelerate Pace of Scientific Discovery

As the pace of science and technology (S&T) discovery accelerates globally, DARPA seeks new ways to more quickly mine the vast S&T landscape for revolutionary discoveries. The agency is kicking off the Advanced Research Concepts (ARC) initiative, which will focus on rapid exploration and analysis of a high-volume of promising new ideas seeking to answer high-risk/high-reward “What if?” questions. ARC aims to assess the impact of further investment on problems of importance to national security.

“The world is incredibly dynamic, and technology and threats are evolving faster than we have ever seen before,” said DARPA Director Stefanie Tompkins, following the ARC announcement on Oct. 5 at the DARPA Forward event on the campus of The Ohio State University. “DARPA is structured to always adjust and readjust, and sometimes change direction so we are not simply reacting to the changes around us. Status quo is a losing strategy. We need to explore many topics to find those rare DARPA ideas that could result in new, game-changing technologies for U.S. national security.”

Each ARC topic will be open for up to six months, and the agency will review submitted ideas on a rolling basis. The goal is to issue a contract for selected ideas within weeks to begin work quickly. The funding will support one scientist or engineer as a full-time equivalent to work on the approved idea for one year, during which the researcher will pursue the answer to the specific topic question.

“DARPA has spurred revolutionary breakthroughs from ‘What if?’ questions over the decades,” Tompkins said. “Such as, ‘What if we could link lots of computers with a common communication protocol?’ laying the foundation for the internet. Or ‘What if we could rapidly develop new vaccines to combat new viruses?’ leading to novel COVID-19 vaccines that saved millions of lives.”

The ARC program will work hand in hand with the recently announced DARPA Innovation Fellowship. Innovation Fellows, standout early career scientists and engineers selected for a two-year position at DARPA, will develop the ARC topics, review submitted ideas, and then oversee the performers selected to receive DARPA ARC funding.

Both ARC and the Innovation Fellowship fall under DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO). DSO, one of DARPA’s six technology offices, identifies and pursues high-risk, high-payoff research initiatives across a broad spectrum of science and engineering disciplines and transforms them into important new technologies for U.S. national security.

“Scientific discovery is an exploration,” said DSO Director Jinendra Ranka. “With the ARCs and the fellows, DARPA intends to launch hundreds of scientific explorers each year, providing opportunities to scan the horizon for promising new ideas.”

For information about the ARC program, including open topics, visit: https://www.darpa.mil/ARC. The site will be continuously updated as new research topics are added.

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