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The annual dollar volume of activities in the Research
Laboratory of Electronics (RLE) at the Massachusetts
Institute of Technology (MIT) is approximately $30M.
Our principal sponsors are agencies of the Federal
government—either
directly or through collaborative projects with industry
and peer non-profit institutions—and industry.
Remaining RLE activities are funded from foundations,
MIT Lincoln Laboratory, or by the discretionary resources
of RLE and its investigators.
The agencies of the DOD, which include the Defense Advanced
Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the Office of Naval
Research (ONR), the Air Force Office of Scientific Research
(AFOSR), and Army Research Office (ARO), provide approximately
33% of the sponsored research funding in RLE. Projects
range from single investigator grants to large, multi-investigator
programs.
DARPA is the central research and development organization
for the DOD. It manages and directs selected basic and
applied research and development projects for DOD, and
pursues research and technology where risk and payoff
are both very high and where success may provide dramatic
advances for traditional military roles and missions.
ONR coordinates, executes, and promotes the science
and technology programs of the United States Navy and
Marine Corps through schools, universities, government
laboratories, and nonprofit and for-profit organizations.
AFOSR manages the discovery and initial development
of the leading edge of research while identifying potential
new concepts and opportunities that will serve the Air
Force in the future.
ARO seeds scientific and far reaching technological
discoveries that enhance Army capabilities, and represents
the most long-range Army view for changes in its technology.
The NIH provide approximately 20% of RLE’s sponsored
research funding, and supports efforts in communication
biophysics, laser medicine, and neural prostheses.
The NIH, a part of the U.S. Department of Health and
Human Services, is the primary Federal agency for conducting
and supporting medical research. Its mission is science
in pursuit of fundamental knowledge about the nature
and behavior of living systems and the application of
that knowledge to extend healthy life and reduce the
burdens of illness and disability.
The NSF provides approximately 15% of the sponsored
research funding in RLE, with support ranging from single
investigator grants to the large MIT-Harvard Center
for Ultracold Atoms.
The NSF is an independent federal agency with the missions
to promote the progress of science; to advance the national
health, prosperity, and welfare; and to secure the national
defense. The NSF supports work in all fields of fundamental
science and engineering with the exception of medical
sciences.
RLE collaborations with industry in multiple application
areas support approximately 10% of the Laboratory’s
activities. Industrial sponsors include Advanced Bionics,
BAE Systems, DuPont, Hewlett-Packard, Mitsubishi, Pirelli,
and Texas Instruments.
RLE-industry collaborations have had spectacular success,
most notably in the development and adoption of high
definition television (HDTV) in the United States, digital
television, and in the discovery and application of
optical coherence tomography (OCT) for medical imaging.
The Laboratory has recently seeded the Center for Integrated
Photonic Systems (CIPS), a major MIT interdepartmental
and inter-laboratory effort to work with industry in
the development of a long-range vision for research
and creation of integrated photonic devices and systems.
Approximately 20% of RLE’s sponsored research
funding comes in the form of collaborative agreements
with other institutions and universities. Nearly all
of these agreements are funded at their source by the
DOD or NIH. A particularly large category of collaborative
effort is with hospitals and medical research institutions
in the Boston area as well as elsewhere in the United
States.
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