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Innovation at APL is woven into everything we do and has been at the heart of the Laboratory’s mission since our founding. To ensure that the Lab continues to be a world-class center for research breakthroughs, we have created wide-ranging innovation programs and initiatives to encourage and fund our staff members in their exploration of ideas, inspirations, and drive to discover.

Independent Research and Development Program

The Independent Research and Development (IRAD) program is a robust technical research and development effort that aims to strengthen APL’s technical competencies and position us to address strategic priorities. IRADs allow funding for APL staff members to pursue ideas that are not currently funded by sponsors but address domains or areas of interest to the Laboratory and the nation. Managed by APL’s mission areas, IRADs are an important part of APL’s core work and are undertaken in one of four categories: basic research, applied research, development, or systems or other concept formulation studies. An IRAD project must have as its objective the use of science and technology to solve a problem or develop a concept. Many IRAD projects have matured into sponsored work that has had real impact on our nation.

Project Catalyst

In 2015, the Lab launched a major initiative to increase internal investments in high-risk, transformational ideas and technologies: Project Catalyst. This initiative allows staff members to compete for significant funding, sometimes over a period of years, to test critical assumptions, investigate phenomena, and push the boundaries of our current knowledge. This funding is in addition to the substantial IRAD funding that mission areas across the Lab offer to worthwhile ideas and investigations. Since the launch of this initiative, staff have been awarded over 500 grants ranging from $10K to $500K.

Janney Grants

APL is committed to our staff’s ability to engage and collaborate with the broader science and technology ecosystem, both domestically and globally. In fact, collaboration and outreach are a key part of our overall strategy at the Lab, allowing us to maintain awareness of emerging technologies and stay on the cutting edge of competency areas for our sponsors. Janney Grants provide funding to help APL staff members to uncover emerging science results and technologies from a wide range of national and international commercial, public, and nonprofit—including academic—communities. These grants offer competitive award opportunities to support thought leadership activities such as authoring publications and attending or hosting conferences.

Building Leaders, Accelerating Science and Technology (BLAST)

BLAST is an annual innovation challenge and development program focused on targeting early-career staff members, encouraging collaboration, and harnessing APL’s culture of innovation to address tough challenges relevant to the Lab and our sponsors. BLAST uses a hands-on, team-based approach to tackle challenging technical problems. Small, diverse teams are formed before the Labwide challenge announcement. Teams then spend the summer developing a demo-ready prototype solution that is presented and judged by a panel of internal and external experts and stakeholders. The BLAST program centers around developing emerging APL leaders, promoting diversity and inclusion, and fostering lab-wide collaboration as early career staff innovate to tackle impactful challenges.     

Central Spark

Central Spark is a 24/7 innovation space, giving staff the freedom to pursue direct, indirect, and personal endeavors with minimal rules, promoting creativity and experimentation. The facility provides 9,000 square feet of collaboration space, with over 3,000 staff visits per week. Central Spark combines the capabilities of virtual, augmented, and extended reality development, electronic circuitry capabilities, rapid physical fabrication, and human-centered design, and also offers gathering space for breaks and conversation.

Diverse Voices Lead to Bold Solutions

We understand the value diversity, equity, and inclusion (DEI) bring to the Lab, both in elevating the everyday work experience and in enabling innovation. Staff members can take advantage of a range of educational opportunities and tools intended to help them develop inclusive practices that bolster innovation on their teams. Our interactive DEI curriculum includes courses exploring diverse inclusion, nonconscious bias, and proactive bystander intervention. Our DEI innovation manager and DEI-focused teams around the Lab work together to develop and implement best practices and tools to promote DEI, such as a survey that assesses inclusive behaviors on teams and a website that helps staff members infuse inclusive behaviors into team development and teaming practices.