
DARPA - Our Research - rfreytag
http://www.darpa.mil/our-research?ppl=viewall&tFilter=&oFilter=3&sort=undefined
======
mattmight
As principal investigator for three of the listed DARPA projects (APAC, CRASH,
STAC), I have to say that DARPA is by far my favorite research agency to work
with.

Every DARPA project I've worked on goes through the same three phases:

1\. This is impossible.

2\. This is impractical.

3\. Holy shit! It works!

DARPA is unique in many ways: all agency positions are temporary (2-4 years
usually), so there's no technical stagnation.

There's a high tolerance for risk. It would be remarkable for more than half
the teams on a project to reach the objective.

And, they actually give you all the funding you say is necessary to complete
the objective.

I certainly have my gripes with DARPA too, but in comparison to virtually any
other federal research agency, it's a pleasure to work with them.

------
etrautmann
One thing that many people may not realize is that DARPA doesn't award grants,
it awards contracts. You're obligated to achieve your deliverables, in
contrast with NSF/NIH/etc where you might discover something new and follow a
different path than you anticipated in your grant proposal. This is not a bad
thing, but something to be aware of.

Second, the reporting periods are much shorter. You'll have a call with your
DARPA PM every two weeks. This is for DARPA to provide any assistance they can
to address roadblocks and move forward, but it does keep the pace relentless.

I also find DARPA projects to be the most ambitious and interesting projects
I've worked on so far. Much less risk averse and highly imaginative.

~~~
rfreytag
> DARPA [...] awards contracts. You're obligated to achieve your deliverables

Deliverables can be a report if you have nothing more. Easier than handling
the changing demands of angels and VCs.

DARPA contracts pay you to do the promised research on the topic you proposed
and then report your NEGATIVE or positive results, in writing, to three
entities: PM, DARPA Director, and DTIC (Defense Technical Information Center).
DARPA's compliance requirements are minimal and very reasonable.

As performer on three DARPA contracts I can say the PMs were professional,
sharp, and gave me great flexibility to pursue results. I did the research
behind at least 8 products, probably unfundable due to risk, with the support
of DARPA. Best of all, I have ownership of the products and my entire company
post-funding.

Quickly developing a trusting relationship with your PM and the staff is key
to a good result; as with any customer. DARPA PMs are all current in their
fields and know their time to produce results is limited (2-4 years) so they
expect "high risk" submissions that might deliver revolutionary results.

The only catch is taking research results to market is non-trivial. However,
even there DARPA is getting better at helping you find partners and follow-on
contracts.

~~~
etrautmann
Completely agree - we've got a fantastic PM under the new BTO and that makes a
huge difference to the success of the project.

------
themeek
The work that DARPA does is incredible and we should be proud, as a country,
that we pursue transformational research. One of the big weaknesses of the
private sector is that there are few opportunities to pursue high-risk high-
reward research and research that must be done on long timelines.

The stuff DARPA funds is fundamentally important and has an incredible track
record.

That said, their primary customer is the DoD which has demands for technology
that is sometimes rather creepy. Without going too far down that route and
forcing a tangent on the thread I'll just plug here that technology is power
and that power can be used for good and evil, for noble and ignoble and for
personal or public gain. We need to cheer on DARPA for its development of
technology and keep its customers accountable for how it applies that
technology.

~~~
bradneuberg
Do you know of non-DARPA organizations doing the kind of high-risk, high-
reward work DARPA does but without the military angle?

~~~
themeek
I do not. Microsoft Research and Google Research and IBM are examples of
places where some of this research is done - and there's Universities. MITRE
does as well as other semi-public orgs.

But it's the case that all of these places also sponsor work and work with the
military. I guess the answer is yes that it exists, but no it doesn't exist
(AFAIK) completely military free.

I don't have very good visibility into pharma companies and agro companies. I
know that they do some long term research and I don't know (I would suspect)
whether they have partnerships with DoD folks.

------
aaronkrolik
Also something to keep in mind: DARPA PM's are only temporary jobs. PM's are
not contractors, but the residency only lasts 2-3 years. If, as a PM, you
start a project, at the end of your term, your project is handed off to a new
PM.

~~~
dimino
Do you swap projects, or do you move on from DARPA entirely?

~~~
JonathonW
It depends. The PM on the (now completed) DARPA project I worked on had at
least one other completed project under her belt by the time ours started, but
moved on to other things outside DARPA near the end of our project.

------
cartoonfoxes
Speaking as a Canadian, DARPA is one of the few things that make me wish I was
an American.

------
kondor6c
Is this defense funding at work?

~~~
etrautmann
Yes - often times towards basic science and areas that are deemed "too risky"
for NSF/NIH/DOE/NASA/etc and not towards weapons. Important to note that DARPA
has funded the research that led to GPS, the internet, critical components of
cell phones, autonomous vehicles, and many other pieces of core technological
infrastructure.

The creation of the new Biological Technologies Office (BTO) this past year is
particularly exciting. Example projects I find exciting:

Neural prosthetics for psychiatric disorders:
[http://www.darpa.mil/program/systems-based-
neurotechnology-f...](http://www.darpa.mil/program/systems-based-
neurotechnology-for-emerging-therapies)

neural prosthetics for memory: [http://www.darpa.mil/program/restoring-active-
memory](http://www.darpa.mil/program/restoring-active-memory)

~~~
justizin
GPS was developed primarily to improve the aiming of nuclear weapons, afaik,
let's not fool ourselves.

Neural prosthetics sound like they want to create automatons, but it's
possible that they want to deal with the military's epic mental health crisis.

~~~
etrautmann
That's without a doubt a major motivation of neural prosthetics.
Rehabilitating soldiers who've lost limbs due to IEDs, etc, is one of the
explicit reasons for DARPA's REPAIR program as one example. I don't see that
as a weaponization though, and find it a morally defensible motivation for
research, though I recognize that many members of this community in particular
may avoid projects with any connection to defense.

------
chatmasta
No Tor?

~~~
dguido
Projects related to Tor were funded as part of the Memex project. DARPA only
funds transformational research, not iterative improvements to existing
technology, so simply funding "Tor" is not a thing they would do.

