Innovations & technologies

Office of Naval Research launches program to speed up innovation

The Office of Naval Research is launching a new program to spur innovation in the Navy and Marine Corps, in what the service says is a direct response to the National Defense Strategy’s call to accelerate the delivery of technology to warfighters.
The Naval Innovation Process Adoption (NIPA) program, launched March 29, seeks to inject new processes into the service that would allow “light bulb” ideas to go from concept to reality at a faster rate.
“The National Defense Strategy states it clearly,” Richard Carlin, the head of ONR’s Sea Warfare and Weapons Department, said in an ONR press release. “As technology advances faster than ever before, and both state and non-state actors having access to it, the naval research community needs to accelerate accordingly.”
Few examples were included in the release, though it did note a focus on creating a “common language and approach” for both the Navy and Marine Corps. Broadly, NIPA is based on the H4X problem-solving method used by various organizations across the Department of Defense.