Assessing the Impact of DoD-Funded Assistance Projects on the Availability of New Warfighting Capabilities

Abstract

The Department of Defense (DoD) spends billions of dollars annually on efforts intended to advance warfighting capabilities. This funding takes the form of “procurements'' and “assistance.” Procurements, or government contracts, refer to the U.S. government (USG) acquiring property or services for the direct benefit-of or use-by the USG. “Assistance” refers to the transfer of a thing of value to the USG to carry out a public purpose or stimulation. Assistance includes grants, loans, and cooperative agreements; and since 2010, the DoD has outlaid nearly $1 trillion in assistance awards. Grants and cooperative agreements pertaining to research and development (R&D) account for the majority of DoD assistance. Although assistance represents a significant and critical component of DoD resourcing for innovation, limited scholarship exists to assess the nature and effectiveness of such funding. In this paper, we leverage public data from USASpending to analyze defense-funded assistance awards from fiscal year (FY) 2018 through FY 2023. We explore the distribution of R&D-focused grants and cooperative agreements to better understand the nature of DoD-funded projects, as well as the pool of entities in receipt of the funding. Comparing these results to findings from our earlier research, which focused on procurement-funded DoD innovation initiatives, revealed that the pool of entities in receipt of assistance awards has remained comparatively stable. However, analyzing aspects of assistance data that contain information about the purpose of the funding, we found a disconnect between the military’s stated priorities and direction of funds. We also identified significant duplication in efforts, along with a lack of synergy between projects funded via assistance, and DoD procurement. We offer a series of recommendations for the DoD to better coordinate its funding strategies to more effectively develop and deliver advancements in warfighting capabilities.