Opportunities for Funding and/or Engagement

Scientists and engineers in DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO) promote and exploit new discoveries across the frontiers of physics, chemistry, and mathematics to identify and accelerate potentially game-changing technologies for U.S. national security. After recently spinning off biological technologies into a new office, DSO’s investment portfolio, which continues to create new materials and explore the boundaries of physical phenomena, is expanding to include novel approaches to understanding, predicting, designing, and developing engineered complex systems.

DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is sponsoring a two-day Proposers Day event to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of an anticipated DSO Office-wide Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) solicitation. The event will be held on Tuesday and Wednesday, July 21-22, 2015, at the DARPA Conference Center (675 North Randolph Street, Arlington, VA 22203) and will be webcast for potential proposers who would like to participate remotely.

Why does DARPA sometimes turn to prizes instead of conventional means of encouraging progress, such as by funding activities through contracts or grants?