A lot of money over a long time. That’s what a trickle of researchers is getting from the Department of Defense’s new National Security Science and Engineering Faculty Fellowship (NSSEFF) program, which provides relatively strings-free grants of up to $3 million.
Last November the 2009 awardees—a half-dozen researchers culled from more than 500 applicants—were announced, bringing the total so far to 14. An earlier first round was for the 2008 awardees. The DOD plans to bestow up to 10 of the five-year grants annually.
“We want to have the best of the best in faculty working in national security,” says William Rees, deputy under secretary of defense. By at least partially restoring a relationship between academics and the DOD that has weakened over the past decade or so, he adds, the NSSEFF program is meant to serve two purposes. “Many transformative breakthroughs—GPS, the Internet—were funded by DOD. But in the...
