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The Defense Threat Reduction Agency (DTRA) enables the U.S. Department of Defense (DoD), the U.S. Government (USG), and International Partners to counter and deter Weapons of Mass Destruction (WMD) and emerging threats. DTRA's Strategic integration Directorate (SI), Strategic Trends and Effects Department (ST), Strategic Trends Division (SI-STT) seeks white papers and proposals from outstanding public and private research institutions to deliver research products that generate operationally- relevant, timely, credible, actionable insights and recommendations into emerging threats within DTRA’s mission space in order to enable and guide warfighter understanding of the range of military operations in the next five (5) to ten (10) years. The research, executed under the Strategic Trends Research Initiative (STRI), shall contribute to SI-STT's efforts to characterize the future battlespace to inform future DTRA and DoD operations, activities, and investments, particularly in areas most relevant to DTRA’s mission space.
STRI delivers analytic research products that not only provide insight into the future battlespace in mission-relevant areas but also identify operationally-relevant recommendations for how (in priority order) DTRA, DoD, and more broadly the USG can address the identified challenges, threats, and issues, including in cooperation with partners and allies. While analytic research can take many forms, DTRA SI-STT prioritizes the development of analytic research reports resulting from strategic dialogues, studies, and tabletop exercises (TTXs). DTRA SI-STT will provide guidance and direction throughout the life of awarded projects to ensure they meet DTRA’s needs.
The awarded research efforts under this Broad Area Announcement (BAA) constitute applied research and development rather than assistance and advisory services. DTRA SI-STT is soliciting independently-produced deliverables that are designed to identify and answer specific research questions using a specific research methodology that the applicant proposes. These methodologies (or approaches) can involve the conduct of a strategic dialogue or TTX as a mechanism to answer the specified research question. The dialogue or TTX itself is not the expected output from the research project. Rather, it is the analysis of the findings from those events to inform a broader analytic research effort. The rigorous analysis will result in research products, which will inform DTRA and DoD’s thinking and advance applied scientific and technical knowledge in the specified topic area.