This report describes: funding and staff size of the Federally Funded R&D Centers (FFRDC); extent of subcontracted FFRDC work; structure of the parent organizations; missions, core competencies, and capabilities of the FFRDC's sponsors' criteria for defining core work; and sponsors' oversight mechanisms and responsibilities. Overall funding for DoD's FFRDC's increased by about 23%, from almost $1.4 billion in FY 1985 to a peak of approximately $1.7 billion in FY 1990. Since FY 1990, funding for DoD's FFRDC's has decreased by almost 26% to about $1.3 billion in FY 1995.

In 2006, the fed. gov¿t. spent $13 billion -- 14% of its R&D expenditures -- to enable 38 federally funded R&D centers (FFRDCs) to meet special research needs. FFRDCs -- including laboratories, studies and analyses centers, and systems engineering centers -- conduct research in military space programs, nanotechnology, microelectronics, nuclear warfare, and biodefense countermeasures, among other areas. This report identifies: (1) how fed. agencies contract with organizations operating FFRDCs; and (2) agency oversight processes used to ensure that FFRDCs are well-managed. The author reviewed documents and interviewed officials from 8 FFRDCs sponsored by the DoD, DoE, HHS, and DHS. Includes recommend. Illus.

Between the onset of World War II and 1991, more than 70 centers were created that came to be known collectively as Department of Defense (DoD) Federally Funded Research and Development Centers (FFRDCs). The maximum in existence at any one time was 43, in 1972. An ongoing sequence of DoD reviews has affirmed a continuing need for some FFRDCs. Other FFRDCs have been either discontinued because they were no longer required or, far more commonly, decertified as FFRDCs and allowed to continue, whether on a not-for-profit basis or not, without the FFRDC mantle. Currently, there are 10 DoD FFRDCs. These can be categorized as study and analysis centers, systems engineering and integration centers, and laboratories. DoD study and analysis FFRDCs have had a special role in combat modeling and simulation. Their history over the past 50 years is the focus of this background paper, which forms part of the Office of Technology Assessment (OTA) study of defense modeling and simulation. To provide perspective, some information on other DoD FFRDCs is included.