The Role of New Defense Innovation Intermediaries in the Emerging Defense Innovation Ecosystem

Abstract

The U.S. Department of Defense (DoD) and the military services have, in recent years, established a group of new defense innovation intermediaries (DIIs) to accelerate the development and adoption of new technologies by the DoD. The primary functional role of these organizations is to boundary-span: to establish and strengthen ties between other system components that otherwise do not exist or are impeded by organizational structures or norms. The efficacy of these DIIs in accelerating defense technology innovation and adoption will depend on how ties are created and maintained. In this study, we conducted analysis on the functions purported to be performed by a set of DIIs. Specifically, we looked at how the organizations present themselves externally, on public-facing websites, reports, speeches, and marketing material. We find that the new defense intermediaries considered here report to perform 17 of the 20 functions that are provided by the commercial intermediary baseline defined here. However, based on analysis of publicly available resources, the DIIs considered here do not report to perform three functions: equity investment, patient capital, and alumni management. Policy-makers should consider filling these gaps, but only after deeper analysis and investigation into the efficacy of modeling DIIs after commercial intermediaries.