Current Efforts
Congressionally Mandated Studies
Designation of Certain Facilities on Kwajalein Atoll as a Major Range and Test Facility Base
2026-01-30
Section 245 of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) for Fiscal Year 2025 requires the Science, Technology and Innovation Board to assess the feasibility and advisability of designating the Ronald Reagan Ballistic Missile Defense Test Site and United States Army Garrison Kwajalein Atoll as facilities and resources comprising the Major Range and Test Facility Base, including with respect to the availability and mission capability of such test site and garrison. Areas of focus: history and rationale for the split funding; status of, and interrelationship between, garrison infrastructure/operations and test asset operability, usage, and maintainability; status of supported or supporting relationship between the garrison, the test site, and LL/MIT and the long-term outlook for this partnership; and the role of the Kwajalein Atoll in supporting current and future missions of the DoD.
Optimal Organizational Structure for Digital Solutions Delivery and Adoption of Commercial Digital and Artificial Intelligence Services, Including Software as a Service
2026-10-27
Per section 907 of the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2026, the Secretary shall direct the Science, Technology and Innovation Board (STIB) to conduct a comprehensive study to evaluate and recommend the most optimal organizational structure within the OSW to align and maximize the output of digital solutions engineering and software delivery activities across the DoW. Therefore, the STIB, through the Permanent Subcommittee on National Security Innovation, is directed to conduct a study on the optimal organizational structure for digital solutions delivery and adoption of commercial digital and AI services, including SAAS.
Permanent Subcommittees
Permanent Subcommittee on Strategic Options
2026-01-30
The Science, Technology and Innovation Board, through the establishment of the Permanent Subcommittee on Strategic Options, is tasked to identify concepts, capabilities, strategies, and courses of action in the scientific and technical enterprises that inform decision-making and serve to rebalance intervention cost and benefit to ensure U.S. operational dominance. Areas of consideration will include new and novel uses of space assets; employment of cyber systems; development of new methodologies and countermeasures for electronic warfare; rapid collection and use of strategic counterintelligence; logistics resiliency both within the United States and abroad; region- and circumstance-specific integrated deterrence; existing and potential norms of behavior and escalation thresholds; advanced undersea assets and operational concepts; effective deterrence of adversarial coercive and malign activities in the gray zone; and additional considerations should include the adversary’s attempts and operations to undermine U.S. dominance in the air, space, sea, and cyber domains.
Strategies for Difficult Target Defeat
2026-10-15
The Permanent Subcommittee on Strategic Options is tasked to identify strategies, capabilities, and concepts to accelerate mission success against adversary hard targets and better inform decision-making options across rapidly changing threat environments. Consideration should be given to prior Defense Science Board reports and other relevant studies that have considered a broad category of targets. Other areas of consideration may include previous studies and programs undertaken to defeat these targets; adversary proliferation of hard targets and the outlook for the next 20-30 years, current intelligence on existing targets and what additional intelligence is needed; results of recent attempts to defeat real world difficult targets and lessons learned; advanced and emerging technologies relevant to defeating hard targets, including technologies being pursued in the commercial sector; recommended system architecture framework for detection, target identification, decision support, effects implementation, and damage assessment; and such other matters as the Under Secretary of War for Research and Engineering (USW(R&E)) or the Secretary of War consider appropriate.
Permanent Subcommittee on National Security Innovation
2026-01-30
The Science, Technology and Innovation Board, through the establishment of the Permanent Subcommittee on National Security Innovation, is tasked to examine and advise on Department of War (DoW) innovation pathways and pipelines; emerging and disruptive technologies; commercial sector best practices in innovation strategy, management, processes, architectures, organizational behavior and design, human capital, decision-making, and scaling; and ways to leverage the U.S. innovation ecosystem in support of national security.