The Acquisition Innovation Research Center (AIRC), in support of Defense acquisition and sustainment priorities, is requesting project proposals for “Innovation Projects” from all accredited universities in the United States. The deadline to apply is October 15, 2024.
Innovation Projects are anticipated to be a cyclical funding opportunity.
The next anticipated cycle will tentatively open on March 3, 2025; this date is subject to change. Stay tuned for the latest updates by following AIRC on LinkedIn and bookmark this webpage. Proposals that are not selected in the initial cycle due October 15, 2024, are encouraged to reapply during the next cycle.
Innovation Projects
Innovation Projects are an opportunity for university faculty, undergraduate and graduate students to address real-time acquisition challenges faced by the Department of Defense (DoD). These projects will provide support to university research teams solving problems within DoD’s Research and Engineering, Acquisition and Sustainment, and Service communities.
Innovation Projects supports AIRC’s mission to:
Enable an innovative, improved defense acquisition system
Apply fresh new insights from across Academia to the DoD
Improve acquisition outcomes
This year's research priorities are:
• Incentives and Culture
• Financial Management
• Contract Management
• Requirements
• Jointness, Interoperability, Integration
• Intellectual Property
• Policy Test Labs
• Innovation and Transition
• Model-based Portfolio Tools
• T&E
• Sustainment Transformations
• Digital Engineering
• Digital Ecosystem
• Sustainment Data Analytics
Eligibility — Universities and Students
AIRC’s Innovation awards will only be awarded to universities where participating faculty and students are “U.S. Persons”.
Proposals may be accepted, and Innovation Program subcontracts awarded to all accredited universities in the U.S.
Undergraduate and graduate students, as well as research staff, may participate.
Project Team
Teams may include a mix of faculty, research staff, undergraduate, and/or graduate students. Each team is highly encouraged to involve multiple disciplines – in both their solution as well as their team makeup.
Proposal Coordination
AIRC requires a proposal from universities for each team, with distinct midpoint and final deliverables. There are no restrictions on the number of topics and awards that can be made to a single university. All submission must be received no later than October 15, 2024.
Period of Performance and Schedules
Innovation projects will start in the 2024 Fall Semester and must conclude by February 14, 2025. AIRC’s funds awarded to the 2024 Innovation projects will expire on February 28, 2025.
Contracts, Funding Ceilings, Restrictions
Each AIRC Innovation subcontract will be issued by Stevens Institute of Technology (SIT) as a Firm Fixed Price award to a university, for a specific project and a single team. A Statement of Work will describe high level project objectives and team deliverables. The funding for each project team will have a ceiling of $10K for non-member schools and $250,000 for member schools. Direct labor charges will be allowed subject to university policy.
Invoices
University business offices may invoice SIT for Innovation projects when the contract deliverables are satisfied.
Proposal Preparation and Submission
The proposal includes a Project Description; this section is brief and should not exceed two (2) pages in length. Other Project information sheets and budget sections do not count against this limit. The proposal template gives guidance on other details such as faculty involvement, multidisciplinary capstone approaches, educational techniques, laboratory, facility, and university resources, and past performances.
Universities are requested to submit project proposals to AIRC as early as possible. Student teams do not have to be designated in the proposal or identified before Contract Awards. Proposals should be submitted using the below proposal template. Proposals should be submitted using the proposal submission link on the AIRC proposal template. Documents and attachments must be submitted in MS Office applications or PDF formats using the template below.
Proposals will be evaluated based on their innovation, strategic impact to the DOD and contribution to the expansion of the AIRC network.
2023-2024 Innovation Capstone Data
8 Universities
8 DoD Sponsors
U.S. Navy Little Creek VA
U.S. Army Ft. Liberty NC
Special Operations Support Activity
US Army
AIRC/OSD
OSD, NSA, DOT&E
33 Projects
100+ Students
Project: Disaster Resilience
If you could continue your research, what would be your next step?
“I want to calculate the transportation times next. What would the transportation delay be if there was flooding before and after the research solution has been applied?”
Anam Bayazid
'24, Stevens Institute of Technology
Jose Ramirez-Marquez
Associate Professor and Division Director of Enterprise Science and Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology
Project: Disaster Resilience
What drew you to your research project?
“I liked the opportunity to work with modeling as well as working with something that is a very apparent problem in Hoboken. It also has environmental ties which I take interest in.”
Regina DeMaio
'24, Stevens Institute of Technology
Jose Ramirez-Marquez
Associate Professor and Division Director of Enterprise Science and Engineering, Stevens Institute of Technology
Project: Everything Tablet
How was this project different from other projects?
“We have to consider the sponsor’s vision with this product because it has the potential to be deployed into the real world. Without their guidance, we wouldn’t be able to gauge how successfully it will be adopted within their workforce.”
Andrew Dohm
'27, Michigan Technological University
Glen Archer
Teaching Professor, Electrical and Computer Engineering, Michigan Technological University
2024-2025 Innovation Projects Cycle
Project: Designing a Functional Information Retrieval System for Dynamic Organizational Use
What drew you to your research project?
“This project specifically provides me with a new opportunity to complete a full product pipeline, from initial research and conceptual design to implementation with a published user interface.”
Autumn Toney
PhD Candidate, Georgetown University
Lisa Singh
Professor and Chair of Department of Computer Science, Georgetown University
Project: AI-based DPCAP FAR/DFARS Change Support Tool
Why are you excited to receive this award?
“As an applied researcher I like working with clients. Even though there is a lot of potential for application of AI research to solve problems there are also complications (security, compliance, ethics, quality) to work through to ensure proper deployment.”
Brian Mayer
PhD Candidate, Virginia Tech
Naren Ramakrishnan
Thomas L. Phillips Professor of Engineering Director, Sanghani Center for AI & Analytics Department of Computer Science, Virginia Tech
Project: AI-based DPCAP FAR/DFARS Change Support Tool
What excites you about working on your research project this year?
“I usually don’t get to go back to projects so I’m excited to revisit my prior work and find ways to optimize and expand its capabilities. This also means some value was seen in it which is awesome to see I made some meaningful impact.”
