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New DARPA Director: Basic Research Won't Be Abandoned
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By Stew Magnuson
SAN ANTONIO, Texas -- The new director of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency indicated that the organization will try to balance growing demand for technologies that can help in the current wars against basic-research needs.
Regina Dugan, in one of her first public speeches since taking the helm of the agency 12 weeks ago, said there is always intense interest in the community as to whether a new DARPA director will return the organization to its roots doing basic research and development or concentrate on "near term applications."
"That's a false choice," she said at the GEOINT conference here. "It's my experience that when you embed those two things together in a single program, you are disproportionally effective on both sides."
The agency's roots were in long-lead time research and development on projects for some of the Defense Department's toughest technological challenges. Sometimes the projects did not pan out.
In recent years, the agency has been asked to develop technologies that can have a more immediate impact on current wars.
Dugan, a former DARPA project manager, said the desire to field technology more quickly "gives serious focus" to a program.
"But we [won't] leave off the basic research and development," she said.
Defense Secretary Robert Gates has taken an interest in DARPA. He visited the agency for briefings about five weeks after she was confirmed as the new director, she said.
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