- The document updates OSTP’s list of critical and emerging technologies
- Agencies are pointed toward other transaction authorities and milestone-based fixed-cost contracting
- OSTP and the National Security Council will produce technology-specific plans beneath the strategy
The Office of Science and Technology Policy has issued a National Security Science and Technology Strategy directing federal agencies to organize research and development around national security objectives.
The document supports the 2025 National Security Strategy and satisfies a requirement under the CHIPS and Science Act for OSTP to submit a science and innovation strategy after each National Security Strategy is transmitted.
The new strategy is organized around four pillars: focusing on technological competition, building technological resilience, accelerating innovation, and protecting national security science and technology from theft and diversion.
In a social media post, Michael Kratsios, OSTP director and a two-time Wash100 Award winner, said the strategy is meant to focus more of the U.S. research and development enterprise on supporting military capabilities, homeland defense and resilience, and economic security goals.
Which Technologies Does the Strategy Prioritize?
The National Security Strategy identifies three priority areas for battlefield advantage. Those are the undersea domain, the space domain and military applications of AI and autonomy.
Air superiority; long-range strike; and command, control, computers, communications, cyber, intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance are named as additional areas critical to power projection.
An appendix updates OSTP’s list of critical and emerging technologies. The 14 areas include advanced manufacturing and materials; AI and autonomy; biotechnology; communications and networking; directed energy; future computing; hypersonics and advanced missiles; information management and cybersecurity; nuclear energy; positioning, navigation and timing; quantum information technologies; semiconductors and microelectronics; sensing and signature management; and space technologies.
OSTP and the National Security Council will coordinate technology-specific strategies beneath the document for each listed area.
How Does the Strategy Address Acquisition and Contracting?
Agencies should use other transaction authorities where appropriate for research, prototype and production projects, according to the strategy. It also points agencies toward milestone-based fixed-cost contracting with multiple competing participants and performance-based down-selects.
The document recommends a mix of contract mechanisms, pairing slower traditional approaches with faster nontraditional ones that carry higher risk.
Agencies are directed to establish streamlined pathways for companies, including small and nontraditional performers, to secure cooperative research and development agreements and technology commercialization agreements. The strategy also calls for aligning the R&D missions of university-affiliated research centers and federally funded research and development centers with national security priorities.
Where consistent with security and legal constraints, agencies should let U.S. companies access federal R&D infrastructure for work aligned with national security needs.
What Does the Strategy Say About Research Security?
Entities deemed high-risk would lose access to fundamental research funding under the strategy, including companies on the Section 1260H list of Chinese military companies operating in the U.S.
Other measures include universal research security reporting forms to reduce administrative burden, automated vetting of research proposals, and cybersecurity guidelines for researchers and research institutions.
The document also aims to streamline security clearance processing for personnel and facilities, and to address over-classification that limits participation in national security work.
