Download Locations

• Open CRS (User submitted)

Summary

The Directorate of Science and Technology is the primary organization for research and development (R&D) in the Department of Homeland Security (DHS). With an appropriated budget of $932.6 million in FY2009, it conducts R&D in several laboratories of its own and funds R&D conducted by other government agencies, the Department of Energy national laboratories, industry, and universities. The directorate consists primarily of six divisions: Chemical and Biological; Explosives; Command, Control, and Interoperability; Borders and Maritime Security; Infrastructure and Geophysical; and Human Factors. Additional offices have responsibilities, such as laboratory facilities and university programs, that cut across the divisions. The directorate is headed by the Under Secretary for Science and Technology. In the past, some Members of Congress and other observers have been highly critical of the directorates performance. Although management changes have somewhat muted this criticism in recent years, fundamental issues remain. Among these are the allocation of R&D funding within the directorates programs, including the balance among basic research, applied research, and development and the proportion of funds allocated to government, industry, and academia; how the directorate sets priorities, including its use of strategic planning documents, its system of Integrated Product Teams, and the extent to which it bases priorities on risk assessment; the nature and effectiveness of the directorates relationships with other federal R&D organizations, such as the Domestic Nuclear Detection Office, other organizations inside DHS, the Department of Energy national laboratories, and other agencies; the definition of the directorates mission, such as identification of its customers, the scope of its R&D role within DHS, and the extent of its non-R&D missions; the directorates budgeting and financial management, including the quality of its budget documents and the persistence of unobligated balances; the directorates responsiveness to Congress; and the establishment of metrics and goals for evaluating the directorates output. Congressional policymakers are widely expected to consider reauthorization legislation for DHS during the 111th Congress. Such legislation would likely include provisions that would affect the Science and Technology Directorate.

XML - JSON