On 21 October, the Office of the Secretary of Defense announced a new award of a University Affiliated Research Center (UARC) in Systems Engineering (SE). The award and subsequent contract for a minimum of $2M/year for the next five years was given to a multi-university team headed by Stevens Institute and the University of Southern California, with participation by the Air Force Institute of Technology and other partners (see figure below). While the initial award is modest given the size of the UARC team, most existing government-sponsored UARC’s have continued for decades and have grown significantly in terms of funding levels. The SE UARC, jointly sponsored by the Deputy Under Secretary of Defense (Acquisition and Technology) and the National Security Agency will provide research and analysis for advanced and emerging SE practices and relevant technologies. The SE UARC will address the full spectrum of DoD systems, to include systems of systems and enterprise systems, to ensure consistent application and SE excellence throughout the acquisition lifecycle.
AFIT, through the AF Center for Systems Engineering, was invited by Stevens Institute to join the team they were assembling for the then-proposed SE UARC. AFIT, and in particular the Systems and Engineering Management Department (ENV), provides a valuable piece to the overall makeup of the UARC. ENV, with its collection of systems-oriented programs, addresses many of the potential research areas of the SE UARC. Further, AFIT provides the advantage of experienced, security-cleared military and DoD civilian students that can work directly with DoD sponsors to accomplish research objectives and provide transitionable products of that research. AFIT faculty and students are uniquely suited to share and build on experiences from working with a wide variety of DoD customers including laboratories, program offices, logistics centers, and those involved in capability based planning. Some of the areas of research that AFIT intends to pursue through the SE UARC are interoperability measurement, early application of SE, architecture evaluation and usage, and human systems integration. The AFIT points of contact for the SE UARC are Dr. Dave Jacques (ENV), Principal Investigator/Research Team Lead; Dr. Michael Caylor (ENR), Sponsored Funding/Contracts; and Mr. Bill Hancock (PA), Public Affairs.