Originally published DoD advisory board calls on the Pentagon to expand DIU on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2025/01/dod-advisory-board-calls-on-the-pentagon-to-expand-diu/ at Federal News Network
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The Defense Innovation Board, an advisory group set up to provide independent recommendations to the defense secretary, is urging the Pentagon to expand the Defense Innovation Unit into a fully staffed central office that serves as an entry point for both traditional and non-traditional vendors.
In their first 2025 report titled “Scaling Nontraditional Defense Innovation,” which was released on Tuesday, board members said while the reforms led by the DIU has improved the speed of procurement and the organization itself has been a significant driver of the DoD’s innovation efforts, the unit still needs additional staffing and infrastructure to provide support to nontraditional vendors at scale.
During a public meeting on Tuesday, board members agreed that to sustain and grow its impact, namely becoming an organization that provides “end-to-end concierge service” for nontraditional vendors, DIU needs additional “Series C” investment from Congress beyond what lawmakers allocated in 2024.
“With DIU enjoying robust bipartisan support on Capitol Hill, the next Secretary of Defense should seize this opportunity to capitalize on Congress’ enthusiasm for DIU’s mission. Rather than scaling back investments, the DoD should build on the momentum of DIU’s fiscal 2024 budget to further expand its capabilities and connections to the nontraditional vendor ecosystem,” board members said in the report.
In 2024, Congress appropriated $938 million for DIU — about $842 million above its budget request. The investment reflected the organization’s increasingly important role in driving innovation throughout the department. For fiscal 2025, the House Appropriations Committee, for example, called for allocating over $1.3 billion for DIU and “select defense-wide innovation efforts to deliver capabilities from nontraditional sources, including small and medium-sized businesses.”
DIU, located in Silicon Valley with offices around the United States, released its new strategic vision nearly a year ago, dubbed DIU 3.0, which aims to accelerate and scale the use of commercial technologies more broadly across the military. The plan includes embedding DIU’s personnel directly into military commands and operations to help the organization better understand challenges that are unique to each command.
Notably, DIU has been a key part in supporting the Replicator initiative to allow the Defense Department to field thousands of attractable autonomous systems by summer 2025.
“DIU must continue building on the governance processes put in place through Replicator, growing its centrifugal role in identifying and bringing aboard commercial technologies while catalyzing others across the services — especially the program executive offices — to do the same,” said board members.
To mature DIU into an organization that provides end-to-end services to nontraditional companies, board members said the Defense Department needs to build a team of cross-service contracting officers and “third-party tech scouts” to improve the procurement workforce’s understanding of non-Federal Acquisition Regulation funding vehicles, such as Other Transaction Authority, which are faster and more flexible than traditional contracting methods. The department would also need to build and maintain open-access resources like the DoD’s Innovation Pathways website and recently launched SciTechCONNECT hub to allow vendors to find information and resources independently.
In addition to transforming DIU, the advisory board called on the Defense Department to remove certain contracting burdens, such as eliminating defense contract audit agency audits and accounting reviews for firm fixed-price contracts under $2 million and adopting uniform proposal formats similar to those used in the commercial sector across DoD.
Along with the “Scaling Nontraditional Defense Innovation” report, the advisory board also released a “Pathways to Scaling Unmanned Weapon Systems” report, where board members urged the DoD to identify the technologies that it wants to scale and have the funding that would signal the department’s willingness to commit.
Over the last several years, the DIB has issued more than 150 independent and actionable recommendations — so far, the Defense Department has implemented around 40% of the initial recommendations.
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Originally published DoD advisory board calls on the Pentagon to expand DIU on by https://federalnewsnetwork.com/defense-main/2025/01/dod-advisory-board-calls-on-the-pentagon-to-expand-diu/ at Federal News Network
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