Agency

DARPA's Defense Sciences Office (DSO) identifies and pursues high-risk, high-payoff research initiatives across a broad spectrum of science and engineering disciplines and transforms them into important, new game-changing technologies for U.S. national security. Current DSO themes include frontiers in math, computation and design, limits of sensing and sensors, complex social systems, and anticipating surprise. DSO relies on the greater scientific research community to help identify and explore ideas that could potentially revolutionize the state-of-the-art.

The mission of the Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is to identify and pursue high-risk, high-payoff research initiatives across a broad spectrum of science and engineering disciplines and to transform these initiatives into disruptive technologies for U.S. national security.

DARPA occasionally stands up temporary special projects offices focused on coordinating, developing and/or deploying advanced capabilities on an accelerated time scale. These efforts fall outside of DARPA’s typical program structure and leverage the Agency’s unique organization and skill sets to make rapid progress in technology areas that are critical to national security. DARPA currently operates one special projects office: the Aerospace Projects Office (APO).

DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO) is sponsoring a two-day Proposers Day, June 22-23, to provide information to potential proposers on the objectives of the DSO Office-wide Broad Agency Announcement (BAA): http://go.usa.gov/cStaQ. Attendees may register to attend in person or via webinar.

DARPA’s Defense Sciences Office (DSO), which identifies and pursues high-risk, high-payoff research initiatives across a broad spectrum of science and engineering disciplines, will host Discover DSO Day (D3) on June 15, in Arlington, Virginia. The event is designed to familiarize potential proposers with the mission, research areas of interest, and business processes pursued by the DSO, a fundamental research office with a history of not only reshaping existing technical fields but also creating entirely new disciplines—and of transforming bold, paradigm-challenging initiatives into game-changing technologies for U.S. national security.