Partnership Overview: Army Research Laboratory

Army Research Laboratory Open Campus

• The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is launching the Open Campus initiative to encourage and enable on-site collaboration in many research areas, including access to ARL facilities, internships and post-doc opportunities.
• As the closest, major research university to the two largest ARL sites, University of Maryland researchers, faculty and students are well placed to take advantage of the program.
• There are generally no restrictions on participation, including foreign nationals.
• Interested participants should contact the relevant ARL technical points of contact to begin exploring collaboration opportunities.
• More information can be obtained from the UMD Division of Research or ARL website.

Opportunities for UMD Researchers

The Army Research Laboratory (ARL) is launching the Open Campus initiative.  Open Campus is a new business model to foster greater collaboration across industry, academia and government, to address fundamental research problems, through on-site R&D collaboration.  This presents an exceptional opportunity for University of Maryland researchers to access specialized facilities at ARL and to collaborate side-by-side with ARL researchers. There are also internship and post-doctoral fellowship positions available.

The mission of ARL is to provide innovative science, technology and analyses to support U.S. Army missions and operations, now and into the future.  ARL operates out of five locations: Adelphi Laboratory Center (located about 5 miles from College Park), Aberdeen Proving Ground, MD, (North of Baltimore), White Sands Missile Range, NM, and other facilities in Orlando, FL, and Raleigh-Durham, NC.  The Open Campus initiative will open parts of these sites to non-ARL personnel, including foreign nationals. Open Campus is authorized and strongly encouraged by the ARL Director and senior Army and DoD officials.

The Open Campus opportunities are described in detail in a document available from the ARL Website. The Division of Research on campus will also be disseminating information about the opportunities.

Several hundred research topics, facilities, internship and post-doc opportunities are described in detail in this document with a synopsis and points of contact for interested collaborators to engage with directly. The opportunities are collated into broad Research Areas:

• Computational Sciences, including predictive simulation sciences, data intensive sciences, computing architectures and computing sciences.
• Materials Research, including structural materials, electronics, photonics, energy and power, biotechnology and bio-inspired, high strain rate and ballistic materials, manufacturing science, processing and sustainment.
• Sciences for Maneuver, including energy and propulsion, platform mechanics, platform intelligence, logistics and sustainment.
• Information Sciences, including sensing and effecting, system intelligence and intelligent systems, human and information interaction, networks and communications, and cyber security.
• Sciences for Lethality and Protection for Soldiers and Army Platforms, including battlefield injury biomechanics.
• Human Sciences, including human-physical interface, human-human interface and human-technology interface.

The collaboration opportunities offered under the Open Campus initiative are not specific funding opportunities.  For the campus community, interested participants should identify the relevant research topic, facility, internship or post-doc and contact the listed ARL point of contact directly to explore establishing a collaborative presence on-site.

Researchers collaborating with ARL under the Open Campus initiative will need to complete certain forms and background checks to obtain access to the ARL sites.  Foreign nationals can participate in Open Campus generally, although some internships and post-doc opportunities do have eligibility requirements.  Participation does not affect the University employees’ rights to publish or intellectual property.  More details can be found in the FAQ section of the Open Campus document.

For further information on campus, please contact John Sawyer in the Division of Research.