THE PROBLEM: Federal R&D funding is spread among thousands of laboratories, universities, and other entities, but gaps remain that limit agencies’ access to top experts, impacting U.S. competitiveness on the world stage. With so many organizations deserving federal sponsorship, the National Security Agency (NSA) Office of Research and Technology Applications (ORTA) set out to plug those gaps and ensure that R&D funding was reaching every corner of the country, specifically at universities. 

THE SOLUTION: NSA ORTA developed ARISE (Advancing Research, Innovating Solutions through Engagement) to promote research opportunities to student populations. Universities were allowed, through ARISE, to engage directly with the NSA on unclassified projects that support mission goals. This arrangement is mutually beneficial: the NSA gets to tap into new resources, and the universities and their students get to work directly with a federal agency on unclassified national security problems. The ARISE program includes a recent expansion called Hacking for Intelligence, in which participants work on unclassified mission problems, analyze NSA-patented technology, and gain insight and hands-on training. This cohort also allowed ARISE to bring in third-party industry partners like AI Squared and Microsoft for essential collaborations. 

THE IMPACT: Typical government-sponsored R&D programs with universities require paperwork, funding, and time to establish, often leading to delays in project initiation and execution. ARISE effectively aligns the goals of NSA, universities, and industry partners by streamlining processes and fostering a culture of creative collaboration. Additionally, it achieves these results without incurring extra costs, allowing for faster progress and greater impact for everyone involved. Exposing students to careers in technology and cybersecurity at an agency also strengthens the STEM pipeline, inspiring the next generation of professionals in these critical fields. 

One success is NSA’s Laboratory of Analytic Sciences partnership with Fayetteville State University in North Carolina on a project using cycle generative adversarial networks to create photorealistic variations of rare objects, enhancing object detection for NSA analysts. Other universities partnered with NSA on projects like detecting adversary use of deepfakes and social media manipulation techniques, using an NSA-created reverse-engineering tool to improve vehicle cybersecurity, and using virtual reality to help NSA linguists become proficient in hard-to-learn languages. Not only can these projects eventually be put to use for public benefit, but the collaborations have also already led to more than 20 internships or job offers to participating students.