DSTO: DFCTC gets underway

1 October 2007

By Gregor Ferguson

The Defence Future Capability Technology Centre program was launched formally in August and will make rapid progress this year and early next year – but the real R&D won’t start until June at the earliest.

By the time this edition of ADM is published the process of selecting a major defence research focus for the new Defence Future Capability Technology Centre (DFCTC) will be approaching its second stage.

The DFCTC program will see Defence commit some $30 million over seven years to a focused R&D program designed to meet future ADF requirements in one of six identified technology domains:
• Integrated Battlespace and Systems Integration
• Chemical, Biological, Radiological and Nuclear (CBRN) protection
• Autonomous Systems and Robotics
• Materials sciences
• Electronic Warfare Self-Protection
• High-Energy Electro-magnetics

The Chief Defence Scientist, Dr Roger Lough, launched the DFCTC program in his presentation to the Defence Watch Seminar in Canberra on 2 August.

“The Defence Future Capability Technology Centre is one of the exciting innovations to come out of the Defence Industry Policy released earlier this year,” Dr Lough said.

The DFCTC will utilise many of the characteristics of the broader Cooperative Research Centres (CRC) Program administered by the Department of Education, Science and Training (DEST), he added. “While modeled on the successful CRC concept, the DFCTC will be targeted at developing a specific future defence capability.”

The solicitation process currently under way is designed to stimulate proposals from teams of companies, universities and public sector R&D establishments (including DSTO) for R&D programs addressing one of these technology domains. One of these proposals, and one only, will be selected for funding, regardless of the quality of the other proposals.

Developing capability
The aim is to develop an in-depth capability within Australia to pursue anticipated business opportunities in the technology area concerned. The DFCTC program is run jointly by DEST, DSTO and the DMO.

But it is closely aligned with the future capability needs of the ADF, as identified by DSTO and the Capability Development Executive (CDE).

The first stage, the solicitation of proposals based on a Business Concept Case, got under way in August; the closing date for proposals was 14 September.

Stage 2 was due to get under way early this month. The roadmap, as briefed to potential participants around the country during mid-late August, was for the initial proposals to be reviewed by a joint DEST/DMO/DSTO committee.

This process would consider overlaps between competing proposals and whether or not the bidders concerned should be encouraged to collaborate.

Invitations to submit more detailed Stage 2 proposals were expected to go out early this month, with a four-week response period: responses are due 2 November.

All Stage 2 respondents will go through a detailed interview process beginning 19 November before a final recommendation is sent to the Minister for a public announcement.

The current schedule would see a contract negotiations leading to signature by mid-May 2008 with work due to start in June. While this may look like a protracted process, DEST says it is quicker than that for the CRCs.

The bidding teams are expected to be made up of defence companies, Australian universities with strong R&D capabilities and public R&D organisations such as DSTO and CSIRO.

The involvement of DSTO is not an essential condition for a successful bid and a source at DEST told ADM the process will not put bidders in competition for funds with existing or concurrent DSTO Science & Technology (S&T) programs.

The selection criteria will be driven by three principal factors; Research, Resources and Results.

World class standard
The Research element requires bidders to demonstrate they are able to carry out world-class, innovative research in the technology domains identified under the DFCTC program.

The Resources element is fundamental: bidding teams need to show they have the right organisational structure and the right people to develop the technology in question. As always, Defence and DEST are keen to ensure bidders harness the ‘smarts’ and agility of the SME community.

Finally, the Results element requires the bidders to show their proposal, if it delivers the right R&D outcome, will strengthen both the ADF’s capabilities and Australian industry’s ability to support the ADF. Therefore, appropriate and effective commercialisation strategies are also required.

Defence acknowledges that R&D is inherently risky and that the program could deliver a poor or inadequate outcome. But the solicitation process is designed to attract strong proposals from teams with real R&D credibility and resources.

While the ADF is under no formal obligation to acquire a product or service which results from the DFCTC process, as a DSTO source pointed out, the six technology domains identified for this exercise are vitally important to the ADF and resonate strongly with the Priority Local Industry Capabilities (PLICs) identified as a result of this year’s Defence Industry Policy Statement.

The likelihood of the ADF not adopting the fruits of this research is low, but the bidders still need to establish an effective commercialisation mechanism.

The six technology domains were selected after a fairly wide-ranging ITR process earlier this year that generated some 40 responses and identified 25 separate technology areas deserving of close attention. After assessment by DSTO and CDE, these were refined to the six named earlier.

Timelines
Participants in the DFCTC briefing program raised a couple of important issues. One of them was the speed of the process: the DFCTC was announced formally by Dr Roger Lough at the beginning of August which left very little time for teams to form and develop robust and relevant research proposals.

The second was the issue of unsuccessful bids: what happens to them? Can they be funded or pursued in some other way?

DSTO sources acknowledged the quick schedule, but pointed out the DFCTC was foreshadowed in the Defence Industry Policy Statement at the beginning of this year and, more recently, in the ITR process which resulted in the list of key technology domains, so the likely players had more warning than it appears at first glance.

As for unsuccessful bids, the Committees reviewing the Stage 1 and Stage 2 proposals have the authority to encourage fusion and collaboration by teams whose proposals overlap significantly or in some highly synergistic way.

And the body language at some of the briefings suggests also that the team running the DFCTC program would love to be able to go back to the Minister, present the credentials of the unsuccessful bids and appeal for more money to cover some or all of them in an extension of the DFCTC program.

Potential bidders shouldn’t hold their breath, however: there is a Federal election and a probable change of Minister (if not a change of government) to be negotiated.

While the DFCTC process will be far enough along to be virtually set in concrete by the time the election is held, nobody should bet on an automatic expansion of the DFCTC under the next Federal government, which party forms it.