5
Subject-Matter Expertise of the Science and Technology Enterprise

THE CORE COMPETENCIES

The Army’s Core Competencies are used to define what science and technology (S&T) areas contribute to the Army’s role in national security.¹ This list has continuously evolved in response to Army and national security priorities. They are as follows:

• Biological and biotechnology sciences
• Humans in complex systems
• Photonics, electronics, and quantum sciences
• Electromagnetic spectrum sciences
• Mechanical sciences
• Sciences in extreme materials
• Energy sciences
• Military information sciences
• Terminal effects
• Weapons science
• Network cyber and computational sciences²

While carrying out its analysis of the Army’s Essential Research Programs (ERPs) for Chapter 4, the committee found comparable lists of critical technologies identified elsewhere. But it found little in the way of industry and government parallels to this concept of core competencies. For example, Sandia National Laboratories, MITRE, the Air Force Research Laboratory, and many others did not have a direct competency comparison (at least through publicly available information). But, as the ERPs showed no significant gaps, the committee concluded that the competencies are similarly aligned to meet Army needs. Also, as with the ERPs, the committee lacked sufficient data to determine if the amount of expertise is appropriately balanced across the foundational research areas but judges the types of expertise overall to be relevant and sufficient to meet Army needs to 2040 or even beyond.

Finding 5-1: Based on the information publicly available, the core competencies are unique within the space and align well to the Army’s needs.

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¹ R. Whittle, 2021, “Core Competencies: The Army Preparation Model,” Association of the United States Army, March 2, https://www.ausa.org/articles/core-competencies-army-preparation.

² DEVCOM Army Research Laboratory, n.d., Who We Are, U.S. Army Combat Capabilities Development Command, https://arl.devcom.army.mil/who-we-are, accessed June 24, 2025.

Conclusion 5-1: No significant gaps were found within the core competencies.

THE PEOPLE OF THE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY ENTERPRISE

The people, both civilians and enlisted personnel, of the Army’s S&T enterprise have backgrounds from a broad range of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM) disciplines. In general, they adhere to the 10,000-hour rule.³ That is, experts are usually individuals who have amassed roughly 10,000 hours of experience through advanced degrees, certifications, or professional training. That amount of time is roughly 5 years, or the average amount of time spent by medical doctors in residency. Training stands distinct from education in that rigorous and periodic contextualization experiences to connect individual work plans to mission needs are vital even after a period of formal classroom education.⁴

In the performance of much of the work that the S&T enterprise is responsible for, one of the primary factors by which its credibility is judged are the credentials of the performers. Additionally, the primary means by which experts can quantify their credentials is through work that has received peer review and public dissemination, which also allows them to refine their work and identify best practices. This is particularly important for those involved primarily in 6.1 and 6.2 research, as the virtue of “fail fast, fail often” means transition opportunities often are not fully understood, appreciated, or even recognized. Because it is such a well-known and readily available metric, it can foster a culture that mimics academia, where a person’s value and career advancement is determined by their ability to discover and publish, instead of their ties to modernization priorities.

Although outside the scope of this study, the committee notes that the metrics by which individual success is measured in these early budget activities, discovery, and publications run counter to the strong mission-alignment necessary to compete successfully in a constrained budget requirement. This mirrors the competing priorities at the organization level, both of which can reinforce work on the foreseeable outcomes and raises the chance of technology surprise. A new approach to measures of success to support individual career advancement, one that balances the competing priorities in a way similar to the technology adoption model presented in Chapter 4, is an area that may warrant additional research.

ARMY FUTURES REQUIRE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY COLLABORATION

As noted in “Definition: The Army Science and Technology Enterprise,” in Chapter 4, the Army currently coordinates between the S&T enterprise and warfighters primarily through requirements that flow from modernization priorities, experimentation, Combatant Commander needs, and the like. Soldiers at the Training and Doctrine Command (TRADOC) Centers of Excellence identify capability gaps that turn into requirements for the Army research community. When the technology has reached the desired degree of maturity, it is put into the hands of the warfighter to test and provide feedback to the research community. The committee judges that these circular activities throughout the innovation phase represent “coordination,” since in each case one specific command (or component) has ownership of the effort.

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³ M. Gladwell, 2008, Outliers: The Story of Success, Little, Brown and Company.

⁴ Speaker discussion from Matthew Jones, Director, CUIC and XCP MITRE Corporation, to Committee on Preventing Technology Surprise, January 9, 2025.

In principle, this linear progression can work via coordination when the sequence of organizations through which the innovations flow is aligned in their operations and share a common mission, despite their distinct organizational structures. In practice, however, coordination is not the most effective approach. Not only is technology development not a linear process, but the Army S&T enterprise is a loosely arranged confederation of government, industry, and academic teams spanning multiple budget activities and TRLs and principally organized along budget activity lanes.

In the committee’s view, collaboration must start at the individual level. But during its data-gathering sessions, the committee reviewed more than 30 USA Jobs postings for related S&T vacancy announcements, most within the Army Futures Command (AFC) Combat Capabilities Development Command (DEVCOM). Fewer than 10 percent listed collaboration as a desired skill, and none of them listed the need for collaboration as part of the job duties.⁵

The committee believes that greater amounts of truly collaborative work will pay dividends for the organization over the long run and could serve as an important metric for recognition and career advancement, much as published works do today. The committee found an excellent example in MITRE, which develops cohorts to on-board new employees within a structured rotational cross-disciplinary environment.⁶ By making it part of the hiring and on-boarding process, it becomes a regular and repeatable attribute that will build organizational culture.

Recommendation 5-1: The Army should recruit and train its science and technology management and workforce with increased emphasis on collaboration across budget activities and technology readiness levels, especially for early-career employees.

Army doctrine recognizes the need to overcome the easy part in favor of the important. The ADP 5-0, the Operations Process, states the following: “collaboration is more than coordination. It is multiple people and organizations working together toward a common goal by sharing knowledge and building consensus. It requires dialogue that involves a candid exchange of ideas or opinions among participants and encourages frank discussions in areas of disagreement.”⁷

The Army cross-functional teams are an excellent example of an organizational construct that has integrated collaboration within its culture. The blend of operations, acquisition, and research is attuned to modernization priorities and can quickly address gaps in capabilities. The committee does not advocate for a new CFT-like structure for futures scanning efforts; however, it also found no analog that connects futures thinking to the next generation of capabilities needed for 2040 and beyond.

The committee also found a novel approach by the U.S. Special Operations Command, which has created a new Military Occupational Specialty. That specialty is focused on robotics and autonomy and aims to “develop warriors with the deep expertise necessary for innovation

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⁵ USAJOBS, n.d., “United States Army Futures Command,” keyword search, http://usajobs.gov, accessed January 16, 2025; available in the public access file for this study (Email: paro@nas.edu).

⁶ Speaker discussion from Matthew Jones, Director, CUIC and XCP MITRE Corporation, to Committee on Preventing Technology Surprise, January 9, 2025.

⁷ U.S. Department of the Army, 2019, “ADP 5-0: The Operations Process,” Headquarters, Department of the Army, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN20039_ADP%205-0%20FINAL%20WEB%20INCL%20C1.pdf.

and integration of novel technology into their formations.”⁸ This shows promising potential to create informed collaborators that can inform scientifically sound plans within the S&T enterprise.

THE PATH TO SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY RESILIENCE

The work of prevention may either avert the surprising events from occurring or lessen the harmful effects and consequences once the events have occurred. Resilience can play a significant role in the latter and is defined as “the ability to prepare and plan for, absorb, recover from, and more successfully adapt to adverse events.”⁹

Resilience-based approaches are reactive in nature and focus on flexible planning and resilient responses at an organizational level during a crisis.¹⁰ Key characteristics include organizational flexibility, agility, intelligence, and expertise. These organizational attributes are only achieved through both individual and organizational preparation and practice through elements previously mentioned: envisioning possible futures, collaborating across multiple futures and S&T enterprise organizations, capturing insights, monitoring the technology landscape for signs and signals, and planning.

The processes and procedures of a rehearsal¹¹ can be adapted by Army S&T leaders to accomplish these same objectives. Rehearsals can reveal gaps in plans or processes, opportunities for better collaboration and communication, and the impacts of resourcing constraints. Practicing the organizational response to a technology surprise conditions leaders and scientists to be flexible and adaptive, thus reducing the “shock” of the event and the subsequent delays in a response. This is not to be confused with pivoting individual employees into new S&T directions. Rather, it is about identifying the pinch-points in organizational and management processes and norms that create resistance to innovation and agility.

The rehearsals could center on a vignette and should include decision makers from across the enterprise. The scenarios in the vignettes must be complex, requiring the whole of the S&T enterprise to contribute. The scenarios should constrain both budget and time; to force the types of prioritization decisions that S&T leaders must make in life. The scenarios should also force S&T leaders to reach beyond the borders of the S&T enterprise to work with other parts of the Army to improve the overall collaborative culture and share best practices.

Conclusion 5-2: Trained, practiced, and collaborative individuals are a prerequisite for a collaborative and resilient S&T enterprise.

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⁸ A.J. Cotton, 2025, Statement Before the Senate Armed Services Committee on Strategic Forces, United States Strategic Command, March 26, https://www.stratcom.mil.

⁹ National Research Council, 2012, Disaster Resilience: A National Imperative, National Academies Press, https://doi.org/10.17226/13457.

¹⁰ A. Kott, 2018, “Technological Surprise and Resilience in Military Systems,” in B.D. Trump, M.-V. Florin, and I. Linkov (eds.), IRGC Resource Guide on Resilience: Volume 2—Domains of Resilience for Complex Interconnected Systems, Lausanne, CH: EPFL International Risk Governance Center, https://irgc.epfl.ch/resource-guide-on-resilience.

¹¹ U.S. Department of the Army, 2019, “ADP 5-0: The Operations Process,” Headquarters, Department of the Army, https://armypubs.army.mil/epubs/DR_pubs/DR_a/pdf/web/ARN20039_ADP%205-0%20FINAL%20WEB%20INCL%20C1.pdf.

The committee’s intent is not to present the already well-known value of a resilient enterprise, rather it is intended to show a path to achieving it. It begins with the on-boarding of new personnel and involving them and current workers in cross-organizational S&T work as early as possible. It includes incorporating a wide range of stakeholders into horizon-scanning efforts and a coordinated approach to capturing those ideas to feed creative research. And, if surprise befalls us despite the best efforts to prevent it, that same collaborative culture will be able to adapt quickly and develop countermeasures to minimize its adverse effects.