NATIONAL HARBOR, Md. — With potential adversaries rapidly improving their capabilities, the U.S. Air Force is launching a year-long review of its research efforts to ensure it is poised to keep its technological edge, service Secretary Heather Wilson announced Sept. 18.
The review will identify basic and applied research areas that are key to improving the Air Force’s air and space power over the next 10 to 20 years. It will also look for opportunities to expand partnerships with states, consortia, universities and other non-federal research entities, and will consider whether the Air Force should change the way it oversees research.
“The Air Force must reinvigorate its focus on basic and applied research to ensure the long-term domination of air and space,” Wilson said. “We must also reevaluate how we manage our research enterprise and spend research dollars in ways that advance air and space superiority for the long term.”
The Air Force Research Laboratory will lead the review, Wilson said at the Air Force Association’s Air, Space & Cyber Conference. The Air Force Scientific Advisory Board, the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine and universities will provide input.
Wilson, former president of the South Dakota School of Mines & Technology, said she is particularly interested in strengthening the Air Force’s research ties with academia.
“At a time when federal research funding may be uncertain, we want the United States Air Force to be the sponsor of choice for research science,” she said.
Also in her speech, Wilson said the Air Force, which has dropped more than 54,000 precision-guided munitions on the Islamic State since 2014, continues to use such weapons more quickly than they can be produced. She reiterated her concern that munition shortfalls and other deficiencies will become worse if Congress does not prevent the return of across-the-board budget cuts, or sequestration, in fiscal year 2018.
Wilson, who became Air Force secretary about four months ago, noted that the service faces a “bow wave of modernization” over the next 10 years, as it plans to buy new bombers, fighters, helicopters, nuclear-armed missiles, satellites and tankers. She warned that the return of sequestration would “throw contract negotiations into turmoil.”