The Director of DARPA, Dr. Stefanie Tompkins, will be visiting the University of Utah on August 8. As part of that visit, Dr. Tompkins will provide an overview of DARPA programs, objectives, and funding. The talk will be from 10:30 – 11:00 am at the Gould Auditorium (J. Willard Marriott Library, Level 1). A virtual option is available for those who can’t attend in person.
More details about the visit will be provided in the weeks ahead, but faculty interested in attending should RSVP.
How to Find DARPA Funding Opportunities?
The first step to working with DARPA is to visit the Agency’s website at darpa.mil to learn more about the research that DARPA’s technology offices are supporting. From there, the best way to identify opportunities that bridge those priorities and your interests or expertise is to search for relevant Broad Agency Announcements (BAAs), which are DARPA’s primary means of advertising opportunities. DARPA BAAs and Requests for Proposals (RFPs) can be found on the official federal acquisition opportunities websites, sam.gov and grants.gov. A partial listing of DARPA opportunities can also be found at DARPA’s Opportunities page. The preferred method for submitting ideas and concepts to DARPA is to respond to a BAA, SBIR topic, STTR topic, program research and development announcement (RA), or other Government-initiated solicitation or program (RFP).
Learn More about DARPA via the “Voices from DARPA Podcast”:
Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications of Emerging Technologies:
DARPA is also interested in the ethical, legal, and societal implications of their work. Researchers interested in those areas, can learn more here: Ethical, Legal, and Societal Implications of Emerging Technologies (darpa.mil)
What is DARPA?
For sixty years, DARPA has held to a singular and enduring mission: to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security.
The genesis of that mission and of DARPA itself dates to the launch of Sputnik in 1957, and a commitment by the United States that, from that time forward, it would be the initiator and not the victim of strategic technological surprises. Working with innovators inside and outside of government, DARPA has repeatedly delivered on that mission, transforming revolutionary concepts and even seeming impossibilities into practical capabilities. The ultimate results have included not only game-changing military capabilities such as precision weapons and stealth technology, but also such icons of modern civilian society such as the Internet, automated voice recognition and language translation, and Global Positioning System receivers small enough to embed in myriad consumer devices.
DARPA explicitly reaches for transformational change instead of incremental advances. But it does not perform its engineering alchemy in isolation. It works within an innovation ecosystem that includes academic, corporate and governmental partners, with a constant focus on the Nation’s military Services, which work with DARPA to create new strategic opportunities and novel tactical options. For decades, this vibrant, interlocking ecosystem of diverse collaborators has proven to be a nurturing environment for the intense creativity that DARPA is designed to cultivate.
DARPA comprises approximately 220 government employees in six technical offices.