Applied Research Consortia Project
Developing and advocating for business-defined pre-competitive R&D consortia to address economic security needs shared by advanced democracies
To accomplish its mission, the ARC Project has three primary activities.
Industry-led articulation of near-term opportunities and needs in pre-competitive, cross-border R&D collaboration.
Advocacy for targeted government investments in research platforms, systems, facilities, and programs to support both pre-competitive R&D collaboration by companies and non-proprietary academic research and higher education.
Facilitating the establishment of R&D consortia important to the economic security and national defense of democracies.
Geopolitical tensions are unravelling many aspects of economic and technological globalization, creating an unprecedented opportunity for industry to shape the research funding strategies of democratic governments worldwide.
War, pandemic, climate change, economic stress and rapid innovation are roiling the lives of people around the world and disrupting relations among nations. But in all this, one thing is clear: there is no path forward for advanced democracies that does not depend on tightening technological and economic security relationships with other democracies. In free-market democracies, public authorities depend on private interests to achieve their goals. This means that multinational companies need to lead cross-border R&D and innovation collaboration for economic security and national defense. Read more >>>
The ARC Project builds on Global Innovation and National Interests, an R&D policy and practice research project funded by Lord David Sainsbury at the BRG Institute. That project focused on the globalization of R&D and innovation capability and on opportunities for advanced democracies to cooperatively create and capture value from technological innovation. Read more >>>
The 2023 Prospects page lists ten initial and exemplary topics for cross-border pre-competitive R&D consortia.
The business logic for a developing a shareable research infrastructure among companies from friendly democratic nations is simple and clear:
1) By sharing research assets and outcomes, participating companies can reduce their independent investment in critical enabling (non-competitive) system technologies affecting latency and energy use;
2) By collaboration on R&D for enabling technologies, leading companies can provide and support interoperable innovations without diminishing competition among participant companies; and
3) Open (low-cost) access technology research/platforms will support a wide range of market-driven innovations by participant company’s customers, vendors, and other industry players.