Assessing The Health Of Army Laboratories

The authors have been studying the Army Science and Technology Laboratories for several years to see what might be done to strengthen them. In this paper, they respond to requests from the office of the Army S & T Executive to address the adequacy of the funding provided to two of the above characteristics: equipment and basic research. The equipment issue is one of providing high quality research tools that enable the research staff to work at the frontiers; the funding of basic research concerns providing a strong program of fundamental and exploratory work. Having both excellent equipment and a foundation in basic research will help to ensure the technical quality of the products from the Army laboratories.

Between 1942 and 1975, the U.S. Army conducted tests with human subjects to study the effects of a variety of agents, including chemical warfare and biological agents. The potential long-term health effects on the test subjects from their exposures have been evaluated periodically, most recently in a report titled Assessment of Potential Long-Term Health Effects on Army Human Test Subjects of Relevant Biological and Chemical Agents, Drugs, Medications and Substances: Literature Review and Analysis (the Report), which was prepared by a contractor to assist the Army with making determinations about providing medical care to former test subjects. In response to a request by the Army, the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine formed a committee that was tasked with examining whether the Report appropriately identified potential long-term health effects from exposure to the test agents and whether an adequate weight-of-evidence approach was used to characterize the strength of the associations between the agents and their potential health effects. The committee was made aware at its first meeting on November 30, 2017, that the Army had already begun to receive applications for medical care and that some determinations may need to be made before the committee's evaluation of the Report was completed. Because of this urgency, the Army developed a process by which applications for medical care will be reviewed, and as a result, the committee was given the additional task of reviewing the Army's Memorandum that describes the approach that will be used by the Army to evaluate agent- and outcome-specific associations. This interim report was prepared to facilitate the Army's deliberations. A review of the Report is presented first, followed by a review of the Memorandum.

The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board (ARLTAB) provides biennial assessments of the scientific and technical quality of the research, development, and analysis programs at the Army Research Laboratory (ARL), focusing on ballistics sciences, human sciences, information sciences, materials sciences, and mechanical sciences. This biennial report summarizes the findings of the ARLTAB from the reviews conducted by the panels in 2015 and 2016 and subsumes the 2015-2016 interim report.

The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is the corporate laboratory for the U.S. army, which bridges scientific and military communities. The ARL is critical in maintaining the United States' dominant military power through its advanced research and analysis capabilities. The National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine's Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board (ARLTAB) conducts biennial assessments of the scientific and technical quality of the facilities. These assessments are necessary to ensure that the ARL's resources and quality of programs are maximized. 2017-2018 Assessment of the Army Research Laboratory includes findings and recommendations regarding the quality of the ARL's research, development, and analysis programs. The report of the assessment is subdivided by the ARL's Science and Technology campaigns, including Materials Research, Sciences for Lethality and Protection, Information Sciences, Computational Sciences, Sciences for Maneuver, Human Sciences, and Analysis and Assessment. This biennial report summarizes the findings for the 2017-2018 period.

This report evaluates the In-House Laboratory Independent Research (ILIR) conducted at the Research, Development, and Engineering Centers (RDECs) of the U.S. Army's Research, Development, and Engineering Command (RDECOM) during 2018. It reviews and offers recommendations for each of the eight areas of ILIR research: chemistry, computational sciences, electronics, life sciences, materials science, mechanical sciences, network sciences, and physics.

The mission of Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is to discover, innovate, and transition science and technology to ensure dominant strategic land power. The ARL's core competencies include network and information sciences, computational sciences, human sciences, materials and manufacturing sciences, propulsion sciences, ballistic sciences, and protection sciences. As part of a biennial assessment of the scientific and technical quality of the ARL, this interim report summarizes the findings and recommendations for network and information sciences, computational sciences, and human sciences research.

The National Research Council's Army Research Laboratory Technical Assessment Board (ARLTAB) provides biennial assessments of the scientific and technical quality of the research, development, and analysis programs at the Army Research Laboratory, focusing on ballistics sciences, human sciences, information sciences, materials sciences, and mechanical sciences. This report discusses the biennial assessment process used by ARLTAB and its five panels; provides detailed assessments of each of the ARL core technical competency areas reviewed during the 2013-2014 period; and presents findings and recommendations common across multiple competency areas.

In the spring of 2010, CSIS launched a year-long, independent examination of the U.S. Army and Navy overseas medical research laboratories. The impetus was an awareness that despite the laboratories' impressive scientific accomplishments and contributions to U.S. national interests and global health, they are not well understood outside of research circles and consequently find themselves undervalued in today's environment of fiscal austerity. They stand at the intersection of health and security, a topic of increased importance to U.S. approaches to global health. The CSIS project aimed to assess the laboratories' contributions and achievements; examine the factors that constrain their performance; and propose reforms that will put them on the best course to continued success. It included considerable background research, three formal meetings of experts, travel to five overseas laboratories, and interviews with dozens of laboratory researchers and collaborators. This report lays out the project's research, conclusions, and recommendations. The laboratories contribute fundamentally to U.S. military readiness, their core function, through medical research tied directly to the protection of deployed personnel. In addition, their development of products such as vaccines, therapies, medical devices and new prophylactic drugs brings shared health benefits to the world at large, strengthens the scientific community in the host country, and attrafts other U.S. government agencies as well as multiple university, business and foundation partners, eager to advance field trials and other scientific research in an endemic disease environment. At the same time, the laboratories contribute substantially to related scientific activities, most notably global detection of emerging and re-emerging disease threats, while helping to build military-to-military collaboration and local medical and scientific capacity. They are also active and valued participants in U.S. Embassy country teams, the in-country face of U.S. diplomacy.