Wright State Research Institute wins DARPA cooperative agreement

The Wright State Research Institute (WSRI) has been awarded a cooperative agreement from the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) for up to $3.5 million as part of a fundamental research project to improve knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of social science research methods.

This is the third award the WSRI team has won from DARPA over the past two years. During 2017, WSRI was successful in securing $35.6 million in research contracts from over 15 government agencies and business partners in the research focus areas of human performance; cognitive and social sciences; autonomy; live, virtual and constructive training; and embedded systems.

“I am so proud of the highly interdisciplinary research team we have assembled at WSRI,” said Dennis Andersh, executive director of WSRI. “Because of the team’s expertise, we are strategically positioned to be at the forefront of the trends and emerging interests of the federal laboratories and other government agencies like DARPA.”

“DARPA’s mission is to make pivotal investments in breakthrough technologies for national security, and we feel that this project has significant promise for contributing to that mission by helping to test and validate different research and modeling methods for understanding social complexity,” said Todd Norell, director of WSRI’s research and development division. “It’s a great opportunity for all of us to collaborate with the experts at DARPA.”

A department of Wright State University, WSRI works with faculty and other campus units to catalyze strategic research and combine the best of both applied and basic research to help clients like DARPA with innovative solutions they need.

WSRI’s mission is to deliver high impact solutions for government and industry through research, education and training, and to do so at the speed of business.