International Technology Centers face the axe

What is going on these days with defense research? We have over the past few months reported on a number of shutdowns and consolidations of federall-funded labs, one of the most recent being a DHS decision to merge three of its existing academic research centers and create four new ones by 2010 as part of an effort to eliminate redundancy in its Centers of Excellence program. This latest blow, however, does not involve a massive suburban research park. The Army’s International Technology Centers (ITCs) have always kept a low profile, quietly locating foreign technology firms who might prove useful to American defense needs. Their job is to locate interesting firms, not house them.

Such work by definition requires discretion, but the project’s small staff — located in London, Tokyo, and Santiago — may have been too quiet. According to FCW, “the future of these outposts is under scrutiny,” with Defense officials struggling to reconcile the programs technological successes with regulations that prevent the Army from fully engaging with them commercially. Under current “buy American” policies, DoD cannot bring foreign firms directly into the government — and when foreign firms are approved, they are often too small or inexperienced to handle interactions with the federal goverment. (One way to get around this is to link a foreign firm to an American contractor, but other regulations prevent the Army from working on behalf of contractors.) “We are struggling with this,” said Maj. Gen. Roger Nadeau of the Army’s Research, Development and Engineering Command and Aberdeen Testing Ground.

-read more in Josh Rogin’s FCW report