D

Sample Questions Asked During
the Committee’s Fact-Finding Visits

Committee visits to Naval Research Laboratory, Air Force Research Laboratory and Army Research Laboratory Some questions asked of the laboratories on Technology Awareness and Global Engagement

• Is global engagement in S&T an explicit objective in any research strategy or planning documents?
• What is your strategy for determining what the ‘best’ S&T is?
• What mechanisms does lab management employ to facilitate international awareness and engagement among its technical staff?
• How do you interact with your overseas field offices?
• How do you engage with the external research community in each of your fields? Specifically, with whom and how do you engage internationally?
• How do you capture the information you receive, both from conferences and from your direct interaction with foreign researchers? How, and with whom, is this information shared (across research groups, lab-wide, with ASD(R&E) and across DOD S&T enterprise, and beyond)?
• How do you leverage S&T knowledge and investments made by other researchers across USG?
• What are the biggest barriers to:

1) understanding what important S&T is happening globally?

2) being engaged in international collaborations?

•   What can be done to remove the barriers mentioned above.

Questions/discussion topics for meetings with overseas organizations

Mission:

•   Do you have an international S&T mission? What is it?

o   Is it to maintain S&T Awareness?

o   Is it to build S&T collaborations with foreign partners? How do you choose global partners?

o   Is it to fund research in other countries? Is it to influence future research priorities/investments?

o   Is there a short–term versus and long-term mission or strategy?

Technology Awareness:

• What mechanisms do you use to maintain global S&T awareness?
• How do you prioritize which technologies or researchers you would like to engage with?
• What is your strategy for determining what the ‘best’ science is?
• Do you use data analytics?
• Do you participate in conferences? Which conferences do you attend and why?
• Is your S&T engagement strategy specific to individual countries?

Building and Sustaining Relationships:

• For each of the following organizations in your country, how would you characterize their willingness to engage with you in S&T: universities, industries, and government agencies? With which have you been the most and least successful, and why? Does your engagement approach vary across each sector?
• What about for U.S. universities, U.S. industries, and U.S. government agencies (both those in the U.S. and those with overseas offices)?
• What is your relationship to your national defense science enterprise?
• Do you ever work with the U.S. defense science enterprise?
• How do you build and sustain relationships with foreign researchers or organizations?

Coordination:

• How do you capture the information you receive, both from conferences and from your direct interaction with foreign researchers?
• How, and with whom, is this information shared?
• How do you create opportunities to integrate foreign research into your own organization’s larger S&T portfolio?

Metrics:

• How do you measure the value or success of your global S&T engagement efforts in the near-term (1-5 years) and longer-term (5-10 years)?
• What are the biggest barriers to success?
• Do you have examples of work, research, products, etc. that resulted from international research engagement or collaboration?

Career Development:

• What is the career trajectory for staff who are involved in international S&T programs

Questions for the Services’ Overseas Offices

Mission:

•   What is your mission?

o   Is it S&T Awareness (eyes and ears on the ground?

o   Is it building S&T collaborations with U.S. partners in DoD Labs? in universities?

o   Is it to fund actual research?

o   Is it to influence research priorities/investments, and if so, for whom?

o   Is there a short–term (e.g. taking advantage of a new S&T capability) and long-term (e.g. building an enduring relationship in S&T collaboration) mission?

•   How would you differentiate your mission from that of the other Service offices in Tokyo?

•   How is your mission complementary or different with respect to supporting DOD leveraging of S&T overseas?

Technology Awareness:

• What mechanisms do you use to maintain global S&T awareness?
• How do you prioritize which technologies or researchers you would like to engage with?
• What is your strategy for determining what the ‘best’ science is?
• Do you use data analytics?
• Which conferences do you attend and why?
• Do you have a different S&T engagement strategy for each country in your area of responsibility?

Building and Sustaining Relationships:

• For each of the following, how would you characterize their willingness to engage with you in S&T: universities, industry, and government? With which have you been the most and least successful, and why? Does your approach for S&T engagement vary across each of these sectors?
• What funds does your Tokyo office have to support foreign researchers? How do you prioritize which projects you will fund? Which countries receive the majority of funding? How many of these projects go on to receive subsequent funding from your home office?
• How do you sustain relationships with foreign researchers (particularly ones with whom you do not have established bilateral science programs, such as the Taiwan NanoBio program)?
• Do you work primarily with university researchers or government officials (and if so, are they foreign defense science)?

• How do you sell “collaboration or partnership with the U.S.” to foreign researchers (what is your elevator pitch)? What does the U.S. gain from these collaborations?

Coordination:

• How do you capture the information you receive, both from conferences and from your direct interaction with foreign researchers?
• How, and with whom, is this information shared?
• How do you coordinate your efforts with the other Service offices in Tokyo?
• How do you leverage S&T knowledge and investments, as well as personal/institutional/governmental relationships, made by the other Service offices in Tokyo?
• Do you interact with other U.S. agencies that have international S&T offices?
• What is your relationship with NATO STO and TTCP?

Connectivity to your U.S. S&T Office:

• How do you stay abreast of the S&T areas of interest to your U.S. counterparts?
• How do you create opportunities to integrate foreign research into your Service’s larger S&T portfolio?
• Do you have examples of work that you funded or introduced that was subsequently funded by your U.S. office?

Metrics:

• How do you measure success in the near-term (1-5 years) and longer-term (5-10 years)? E.g., is it how much funding they give out? how well they connect people and technology to the U.S? Are there citable example of people or technology that has benefitted the U.S. DoD?
• What are the biggest barriers to success?
• What steps have you taken to compensate for shrinking travel budgets while maintaining awareness of global S&T?
• Do you believe you have adequate staffing (in terms of number and scientific expertise) and resources (e.g., for infrastructure, programs, conferences, site visits, funding for foreign research, etc.) to accomplish your mission?

Career Development:

• What was your most immediate position?
• What kind of training, if any, did you receive for this position?
• What is the typical career trajectory for staff rotating through the overseas offices?