The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies: Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

doi:10.11647/obp.0184

The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies: Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency - cover image

DOI

https://doi.org/10.11647/OBP.0184

License

https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/

Copyright

William Boone Bonvillian; Richard Van Atta; Patrick Windham

Published On

2020-01-09

ISBN

Paperback978-1-78374-791-7

Hardback978-1-78374-792-4

PDF978-1-78374-793-1

HTML978-1-80064-596-7

XML978-1-78374-796-2

EPUB978-1-78374-794-8

MOBI978-1-78374-795-5

Language

English

Print Length

508 pages (xx+488)

Dimensions

Paperback156 x 26 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.03" x 9.21")

Hardback156 x 29 x 234 mm(6.14" x 1.13" x 9.21")

Weight

Paperback1562g (55.10oz)

Hardback1958g (69.07oz)

Media

Illustrations8

Tables10

OCLC Number

1193020437

LCCN

2019452963

BIC

BISAC

TEC025000
TEC056000
POL063000

LCC

U394.A75

Keywords

U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency
DARPA
transformative technologies
U.S. Government
DARPA model

The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies

Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency

William Boone Bonvillian (editor)
Richard Van Atta (editor)
Patrick Windham (editor)

The U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) has played a remarkable role in the creation new transformative technologies, revolutionizing defense with drones and precision-guided munitions, and transforming civilian life with portable GPS receivers, voice-recognition software, self-driving cars, unmanned aerial vehicles, and, most famously, the ARPANET and its successor, the Internet.

Other parts of the U.S. Government and some foreign governments have tried to apply the ‘DARPA model’ to help develop valuable new technologies. But how and why has DARPA succeeded? Which features of its operation and environment contribute to this success? And what lessons does its experience offer for other U.S. agencies and other governments that want to develop and demonstrate their own ‘transformative technologies’?

This book is a remarkable collection of leading academic research on DARPA from a wide range of perspectives, combining to chart an important story from the Agency’s founding in the wake of Sputnik, to the current attempts to adapt it to use by other federal agencies. Informative and insightful, this guide is essential reading for political and policy leaders, as well as researchers and students interested in understanding the success of this agency and the lessons it offers to others.

Endorsements

The authors have done a masterful job of charting the important story of DARPA, one of the key catalysts of technological innovation in US recent history. By plotting the development, achievements and structure of the leading world agency of this kind, this book stimulates new thinking in the field of technological innovation with bearing on how to respond to climate change, pandemics, cyber security and other global problems of our time. The DARPA Model provides a useful guide for governmental agency and policy leaders, and for anybody interested in the role of governments in technological innovation.

Dr. Kent Hughes

Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars

Additional Resources

[website]A new UK research funding agency

Witness(es): William Bonvillian, Lecturer, Massachusetts Institute of Technology; Dr Peter Highnam, Deputy Director, Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency.

Witness(es): Dr Antoine Petit, Chairman and CEO, French National Centre for Scientific Research (CNRS); Dr Regina Dugan, Chief Executive Officer, Wellcome Leap.