A Canadian DARPA?
This post responds to Alex Usher's article Non-existent Preconditions for DARPA Success , which looks at a promise to implement a Canadian DARPA, and offers reasons why the conditions for success of a DARPA don't exist in Canada. The first thing to point out is that Canada already has organizations that function in a role similar to DARPA. One is the National Research Council. Another is the much less well known Defence Research and Development Canada (DRDC). How these work sheds some light on the argument made above. The two-fold definition of 'works' is at play in both agencies, with some minor caveats. The NRC delivers research to 'clients', some of which include the military. DRDC has only one client, which is the military. But there is the expectation and hope that there will be wider benefits from both types of research, either directly, through the commercial or military success of the client, or indirectly through the production of new knowledge or ne
