Advanced Research Projects.

The world is changing and challenges are coming over the horizon.

The mission of our Advanced Research Projects function is to characterize critical problems and develop practical legal, business, and operational measures to manage them before they enter the crisis stage.

We have an operating focus.

Thinktanks, academic institutions, and other research-oriented enterprises already have a great deal of capability directed toward the technical and policy dimensions of tomorrow’s challenges. This work is both interesting and essential, and we value our collaborations with the talented people working those angles.

We closely follow policy and technology, but our real focus is on the operating dimensions of the problem, which includes a fairly granular evaluation of legal, risk management, and business considerations. For a variety of practical reasons, these factors tend to be neglected, which in the real world often frustrates solutions. We are interested in specifics over generalities, concrete tools over complete theories, and a practitioner feedback loop.

We have a small-scale, rapidly-iterative approach to problem-solving.

We make small bets on practical targeted tools that are usable now, and seek early opportunities to put these tools into operation under controlled conditions. We learn fast and iterate often. Since solutions to complex problems are nearly impossible to get right the first time, we wish to enable enterprises to build valuable experience at low risk before the problem arrives in full force.

We believe that useful solution patterns are found across disciplines.

We draw upon methods and constructs from the legal, military science, intelligence analysis, risk management, cognitive psychology, cybersecurity, computer science, and other domains. In addition, we actively develop and maintain collaborative relationships with professionals in industry, academia, and government who have a stake in the problem. Scouting and bridging different domains of relevant expert knowledge is an important part of what we do.