The Institute for Progress ARPA Model Reading List: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol

On November 13, 2026, Mark Nichols set "The ARPA Model: A Reading List," published by the Institute for Progress on January 31, 2024 under the names of Janika Schmitt and Jake Swett, against dated documents and found that its one sentence on the Internet says the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency "is well known for its role" in "a variety of major inventions, from GPS to the Internet" without naming an act or a source, that its sentence on the agency's creation names President Eisenhower and the name "DARPA" while the agency's own page, which the list links from that sentence, names Neil McElroy, Department of Defense Directive 5105.15 of February 7, 1958 and the name "Advanced Research Projects Agency," and that an article the list recommends quotes a "William Bonvillian," whom the article calls "a science-policy expert at MIT," as dating the internet to 1969 and its scaling up to 1991 or 1992, while the name William B. Bonvillian appears in more entries of the list than the name of any other person.

Preamble: I created this page to examine how "The ARPA Model: A Reading List," a reading list published by the Institute for Progress on January 31, 2024, describes the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and its part in the Internet. The list is a syllabus of 183 lines, most of which are titles of books, talks, podcasts and articles about research agencies, and only a few of its lines make claims of their own about the agency's history, so this page answers those lines, records the sources that the list links for them, reads one of the articles that the list recommends, and reproduces the whole list line by line so that every line can be read in place. Each disagreement on this page cites the list's line by its number in Exhibit A in section 6.0 and names the dated document that decides it. Institute for Progress, "The ARPA Model: A Reading List," January 31, 2024 · Disagreements of Published Claims | Network, Not Protocol · Soft Verbs: A Running Register | Network, Not Protocol · The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking. This page is Disagreement 72 in the standing index of the series, Disagreements of Published Claims | Network, Not Protocol, and a finding on this page is cited by that number followed by the finding's locus, as Disagreement 72, 1.1.

Opinion Rules: You are visiting my record, and I am the subject matter expert on it. If you are a subject matter expert too, I want to hear from you: bring your document and I will answer it on the record. If you are not, you are welcome here to read and to learn. The documented-challenge terms of marknichols.com and the condition on opinion are stated at F40 of The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking, and they govern this page.

0.0 This section records the reading list this page examines, the documents this page read, the way the line numbers on this page are read, the definitions and rules the findings apply, the audit of the list as an authority, and the order of the sections that follow.

0.1 This page examines "The ARPA Model: A Reading List," with the subtitle "A comprehensive syllabus on the ARPA model and its family tree," published by the Institute for Progress at https://ifp.org/the-arpa-model-a-reading-list/ in its category "Metascience." The list prints the date "January 31st 2024" and the byline "By Janika Schmitt and Jake Swett." The page's own metadata records its first publication as January 31, 2024 and its last modification as September 25, 2026 at 03:08 (UTC), which is September 24, 2026 in Pacific time, while the list's own text says "This guide was last updated in January of 2024." This page did not determine what the modification of September 24, 2026 changed. The list was read in full on November 13, 2026, and every line of Exhibit A agrees with the copy of the page that Mark Nichols supplied on November 12, 2026.

0.2 This page read the following documents in full, and it states for each document that it did not read that the document was not read.

  1. "The ARPA Model: A Reading List" of the Institute for Progress was read in full on November 13, 2026, as 0.1 records.
  2. The page of the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency that the list links from the word "Sputnik" in line 10 was read in full on November 13, 2026. The list links the address https://www.darpa.mil/about-us/timeline/creation-of-darpa, and on November 13, 2026 that address delivered the agency's page "Innovation Timeline" at https://www.darpa.mil/about/innovation-timeline, which this page read from its first entry, of 2025, to its last entry, of 1957.
  3. "A growing number of governments hope to clone America’s DARPA," the article of The Economist that the list recommends at line 86, was read in full in the copy of the article's web page that Mark Nichols supplied on November 12, 2026, because the browser used for this page is barred by policy from economist.com. The article's web page dates the article "Jun 3rd 2021," says "A version of this article was published online on May 30th 2021," and places the article in the print edition with the words "From the June 5th 2021 edition." The article names no author, and this page quotes the article in short excerpts only. The same article is answered in sections 1.0 and 5.0 of Wikipedia Describes DARPA: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol.
  4. The books, talks, podcasts, articles and reports that the list names, other than the article of The Economist, were not read, and this page makes no finding on them.

0.3 Each line number on this page refers to Exhibit A in section 6.0. Exhibit A lists the text of the reading list line by line, in the order the list prints it, from its category label to its notes on its two authors. Each disagreement also quotes the line it answers.

0.4 The capital-I Internet (D1) is the publicly joinable network of networks of the registry lineage, born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc. An intranet (D2) is a network, at any scale and under any protocol, whose members join by an owner's permission. A lowercase internet (D11) is any interconnection of networks, including gated ones. Under D1.7, the words of lineage are not used on marknichols.com for the ARPANET, a government network whose users joined by permission. Governing Definitions, D1, D1.7, D2 and D11.

0.5 This page answers three kinds of disagreement, and each disagreement on this page names the kind that applies.

  1. A documentary contradiction occurs when a dated record conflicts with a line as written. This page answers it with the dated record and a dated correction.
  2. A scope overstatement occurs when the evidence establishes a narrower event, network, date or function than the line claims. This page answers it with the scope the evidence establishes.
  3. A definitional disagreement occurs when the list and this site apply different criteria to the same term. This page answers it by attributing each usage to its source.

A sentence that carries a soft verb, a verb or verb phrase that gives credit for an outcome without stating an act that a dated document can confirm or refute, is answered under whichever of the three kinds its documents decide, and it is recorded in the register at Soft Verbs: A Running Register | Network, Not Protocol. Governing Definitions, F57.

0.6 The list names its two authors. This page applies to it the five checks that Mark Nichols ruled on October 2, 2026, and extended on October 23, 2026, for every authority a page cites or disputes, and the five checks return the following results.

  1. The issuing body is the Institute for Progress, whose page prints its address in two lines, "1255 Union St NE, STE 820" and "Washington, DC 20002." This page did not read a charter, bylaws or membership rule of the Institute for Progress, so its membership rule is unknown on this record.
  2. The roster on the date of the act is the byline of January 31, 2024, which names Janika Schmitt and Jake Swett. The list's notes on its authors, as read on November 13, 2026, say: "Janika Schmitt is a Program Officer at Sentinel Bio." and "Jake Swett is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at IFP and the Executive Director of Blueprint Biosecurity." This page did not read a roster of the Institute for Progress for January 31, 2024.
  3. The instrument carries two named authors and a date, and it is a reading list that its own text calls "a living resource guide that is updated periodically."
  4. The custodian is the Institute for Progress, which serves the list at ifp.org, and the list's own metadata records a modification on September 24, 2026, as 0.1 records.
  5. The overlap between the list's authors and the works it recommends is recorded here as a finding. Janika Schmitt, the first author of the list, is named as an author of four of the works that the list recommends, at lines 77, 80, 132 and 133. Three of those works, at lines 77, 132 and 133, name an author "Jacob Swett," and this page does not determine whether Jacob Swett and Jake Swett, the second author of the list, are the same person. Six entries of the list, at lines 77, 78, 79, 80, 101 and 152, are marked "via IFP." This page makes no finding on why any of these overlaps exists.

Under D12, contemporaneous primary documents control over retrospective accounts. The list is a retrospective syllabus of 2024, so no line of the list is carried on this page as controlling. Every disagreement below is decided by the dated document that the disagreement names, and not by the standing of the list or of its publisher. Governing Definitions, D12.

0.7 Under F56, Mark Nichols ruled on October 23, 2026 that a sentence of history or of definition is true or false as written. This page reads every line of the list as written, and it reads every document that it quotes as written by the person or body that wrote it. The meaning an author may have intended but did not write is not in the record, and a line whose predicate is false as written is false, whether the falsity arose from compression, from shorthand or from intent. Each corrected statement on this page supplies the network, the document, the date or the event that the line left out. Governing Definitions, F56.

0.8 Sections 1.0 through 3.0 each state one disagreement, in the order of the list's own lines.

  1. Section 1.0 answers the statement at line 6 that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency "is well known for its role in a variety of major inventions, from GPS to the Internet."
  2. Section 2.0 answers the statement at line 10 that "DARPA was created by President Eisenhower in 1958."
  3. Section 3.0 answers the works that the list recommends at lines 13 and 86, whose title and text credit the agency with the Internet and place the ARPANET in the lineage of the internet.

Section 4.0 records the statements of the list and of its linked sources that the documents support. Section 5.0 states the findings of this page and their consequences for the list as an authority. Section 6.0 holds Exhibit A, the numbered text of the list.

1.0 Line 6 says that the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency "is well known for its role in a variety of major inventions, from GPS to the Internet," which is a definitional disagreement under D1 and D1.7 and a soft-verb credit, because the line names no act, no actor who holds the knowledge and no source, while the documents credit the agency with sponsoring named networks and a named research project and date the Internet, with a capital I, to 1991.

1.1 Line 6 of the list says: "The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is well known for its role in a variety of major inventions, from GPS to the Internet." The line links no source for the sentence.

1.2 Mark Nichols disputes the credit that the line carries. The soft words are "is well known for its role." The hard claim that the soft words imply is that the agency performed an act that produced the Internet. The words "is well known" name no person or body who knows it, and the words "its role" name no act. This is a definitional disagreement under D1 and D1.7, and the sentence is recorded as a soft-verb credit at entry 9.1 of Soft Verbs: A Running Register | Network, Not Protocol.

1.3 The documents that this site holds credit the Advanced Research Projects Agency and the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency with named networks and a named project, as section 1.0 of Wikipedia Describes DARPA: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol records: the agency sponsored the ARPANET, organized the packet radio program, began the packet satellite effort in 1973, and sponsored the research that Vinton G. Cerf and Peter Kirstein called the "ARPA-sponsored INTERNET project" in "Issues in Packet-Network Interconnection," published in the Proceedings of the IEEE of November 1978. Under D11, the research internet that the agency sponsored was an internet in lowercase, an interconnection of networks whose members joined by the permission of a government sponsor. Under D1, the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc., none of which was the agency. Governing Definitions, D1 and D11.

1.4 This section records a definitional disagreement under D1 and D1.7 and a soft-verb credit under F57, and it does not count line 6 among the false-as-written verdicts, because the words "its role" state no act that a dated document can refute. This page makes no finding on the credit that line 6 gives the agency for GPS.

1.5 Corrected statement: The Advanced Research Projects Agency, renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1972, sponsored the ARPANET, the packet radio network and the packet satellite network, and sponsored the research in internetworking that Vinton G. Cerf and Peter Kirstein called the "ARPA-sponsored INTERNET project" in November 1978. The Internet, with a capital I, the publicly joinable network of networks of the registry lineage, was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991 by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc.

2.0 Line 10 says that "DARPA was created by President Eisenhower in 1958," which is a documentary contradiction with the source that the list links from the same sentence, because the agency's own page names Neil McElroy, the Department of Defense Secretary, as the official who issued Department of Defense Directive 5105.15 on February 7, 1958, and names the agency so created the Advanced Research Projects Agency, which was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1972.

2.1 Line 10 of the list says: "DARPA was created by President Eisenhower in 1958, following the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite. It is the most famous and most successful ARPA." The list links the word "Sputnik" in that sentence to the agency's own page, which on November 13, 2026 delivered the agency's "Innovation Timeline," as 0.2 records.

2.2 The agency's "Innovation Timeline," under the heading "ARPA is born," says: "On Feb. 7, 1958, Neil McElroy, the Department of Defense Secretary, issued DoD Directive 5105.15 establishing the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA), later renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA)." Under the heading "ARPA becomes DARPA," the timeline says: "The Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) gained a “D” when it was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) in 1972." Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, "Innovation Timeline".

2.3 Mark Nichols records a documentary contradiction between line 10 and the source that line 10 links. Line 10 names President Eisenhower as the creator and "DARPA" as the agency created, while the linked source names Neil McElroy, the Department of Defense Secretary, as the official who issued the directive and names the agency so established the Advanced Research Projects Agency, a name that the agency carried until 1972. This page did not read a document of 1958 that decides what part President Eisenhower took in the creation of the agency, so it does not count line 10 among the false-as-written verdicts. The second sentence of line 10, "It is the most famous and most successful ARPA," is a statement of opinion, and this page makes no finding on it.

2.4 Corrected statement: On February 7, 1958, Neil McElroy, the Secretary of Defense, issued Department of Defense Directive 5105.15 establishing the Advanced Research Projects Agency, after the Soviet Union launched the first satellite on October 4, 1957, and the Advanced Research Projects Agency was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1972.

3.0 The list recommends at line 13 a book whose title says that DARPA "Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs," and at line 86 an article of The Economist that calls the ARPANET "a forerunner to the internet," which records a soft-verb credit that this page did not test and a definitional disagreement under D1.7 on a source that the list recommends.

3.1 Line 13 of the list recommends "The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs by Michael P. Belfiore." The soft verb is "Is Remaking." The hard claim that the soft verb implies is that the agency made the Internet. The book was not read, as 0.2 records, so this page does not test the title, and the title is recorded as a soft-verb credit at entry 9.2 of Soft Verbs: A Running Register | Network, Not Protocol.

3.2 Line 86 of the list recommends "A growing number of governments hope to clone America’s DARPA by The Economist." The article, read in full as 0.2 records, calls the network that the agency funded after a conversation that the article dates to 1965 "the first cross-country computer network, a forerunner to the internet." The word "forerunner" places the ARPANET in a line of descent that ends in the internet, and under D1.7 the words of lineage are not used on marknichols.com for the ARPANET. This is a definitional disagreement under D1.7 on a source that the list recommends, as section 1.0 of Wikipedia Describes DARPA: Disagreements | Network, Not Protocol also records. Governing Definitions, D1.7.

3.3 This section records a soft-verb credit at line 13 that this page did not test and a definitional disagreement under D1.7 on the article recommended at line 86, and it counts neither line among the false-as-written verdicts.

3.4 Corrected statement: The ARPANET, sponsored by the Advanced Research Projects Agency from 1969, was a government research network whose users joined by permission, and it belongs to the history of internetworking, while the Internet, with a capital I, the publicly joinable network of networks of the registry lineage, was born in 1991.

4.0 The list and its linked and recommended sources state several things correctly that this page checked, among them the year 1958 and the launch of Sputnik that line 10 gives, and the documents that support each one are named here.

4.1 Line 10 dates the creation of the agency to 1958, "following the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite." The year and the sequence are supported. The agency's "Innovation Timeline," under the heading "The Sputnik surprise," says: "On Oct. 4, 1957, the Soviet Union (USSR) launched the first satellite ever, triggering events that led to creation of the Advanced Research Projects Agency (ARPA) in February 1958." Section 2.0 records the actor and the name that the same timeline gives.

4.2 The article of The Economist that the list recommends at line 86 quotes William Bonvillian, whom the article describes as "a science-policy expert at MIT," in two sentences: "We created the internet in ’69. It didn’t scale up until ’91 or ’92." The second sentence is supported at the scope of its dates: it places the growth of the internet in 1991 or 1992, and under D1 the Internet, with a capital I, was born in 1991 on the Commercial Internet Exchange agreement announced on March 25, 1991. The first sentence dates the internet to 1969, the year of the first nodes of the ARPANET, and it places the ARPANET in the lineage of the internet, which is the definitional disagreement under D1.7 that 3.2 records. Governing Definitions, D1 and D1.7.

4.3 The name William B. Bonvillian appears in nine entries of the list, at lines 12, 25, 29, 35, 50, 85, 102, 106 and 110, which is more entries than the name of any other person on the list. The article that quotes "William Bonvillian" as dating the scaling up of the internet to 1991 or 1992 is itself recommended by the list at line 86, and this page does not determine from the list alone whether the William Bonvillian whom the article quotes is the William B. Bonvillian whom the list names.

4.4 This page did not check the other lines of the list, which concern research agencies other than the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, the Heilmeier Catechism, the management of risk and the funding of agencies, and it makes no finding on them.

4.5 Section 4.0 credits the year and the sequence of line 10 stated in 4.1 and the second sentence of the quotation of William Bonvillian stated in 4.2 as supported.

5.0 No statement of "The ARPA Model: A Reading List" that this page examined is false as written, one definitional disagreement records the list's credit to the agency for the Internet, one documentary contradiction records a creator and a name that the list's own linked source does not give, one further definitional disagreement and two soft-verb credits record the words of the list and of a source it recommends, and the list is not carried on marknichols.com as an authority on the birth of the Internet.

5.1 This page counts no line of the list among the false-as-written verdicts under F56, because line 6 states no act that a dated document can refute and this page did not read a document of 1958 that decides the part of President Eisenhower named in line 10.

5.2 Four findings record the disagreements on this page.

  1. Line 6 says that the agency "is well known for its role" in inventions "from GPS to the Internet," which is a definitional disagreement under D1 and D1.7 and a soft-verb credit, as section 1.0 records.
  2. Line 10 names President Eisenhower and the name "DARPA," while the list's own linked source names Neil McElroy, Department of Defense Directive 5105.15 of February 7, 1958 and the name Advanced Research Projects Agency, which is a documentary contradiction, as section 2.0 records.
  3. Line 13 recommends a book whose title says that DARPA "Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs," which is a soft-verb credit that this page did not test, as section 3.0 records.
  4. The article recommended at line 86 calls the ARPANET "a forerunner to the internet," which is a definitional disagreement under D1.7 on a source that the list recommends, as section 3.0 records.

5.3 The list's authors appear among the authors of the works it recommends, as 0.6 records: Janika Schmitt is named on four recommended works, an author named Jacob Swett is named on three of them, and six entries are marked "via IFP." This page reports the overlap and makes no finding on why it exists.

5.4 Under D12, contemporaneous primary documents control over retrospective accounts, and this page has decided each disagreement by the following documents.

  1. Department of Defense Directive 5105.15 of February 7, 1958, as the agency's own "Innovation Timeline" records it, established the Advanced Research Projects Agency, issued by Neil McElroy, the Department of Defense Secretary.
  2. The agency's own "Innovation Timeline" records that the Advanced Research Projects Agency was renamed the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency in 1972.
  3. "Issues in Packet-Network Interconnection," by Vinton G. Cerf and Peter Kirstein, published in the Proceedings of the IEEE of November 1978, calls the research the "ARPA-sponsored INTERNET project."
  4. The press release of March 25, 1991, issued by General Atomics, Performance Systems International, Inc. and UUNET Technologies, Inc., announced the first Commercial Internet Exchange.

The list is a retrospective syllabus of 2024 whose one sentence on the Internet names no source, and no line of it is carried on marknichols.com as controlling. Governing Definitions, D12.

5.5 The findings on this page are open to challenge on the terms stated at F40 of The Governing Definitions and Controlling Facts of Telecommunications Internetworking. A challenger who holds that a finding on this page is wrong states the competing claim in one sentence, names the document that carries it and the document's date, and submits both as F40 directs. A challenge submitted with its document is answered on this page, and a challenge submitted without a document is an opinion and is heard as one.

6.0 This section holds Exhibit A, the numbered text of "The ARPA Model: A Reading List," published by the Institute for Progress on January 31, 2024, as read on November 13, 2026.

6.1 Exhibit A reproduces the text of the list line by line, in the order the list prints it, so that every line number cited on this page can be read in place.

  1. Exhibit A begins with the list's category label, "Metascience," and its title, subtitle, date and byline, and ends with the list's notes on its two authors.
  2. Exhibit A omits the navigation of ifp.org, the list's table of contents, its subscription box and its footer.
  3. Exhibit A prints every line as the list prints it, including one em dash in the title of an article of Nature at line 94, which is the list's character and not this site's. The list prints a non-breaking space in four of its lines, at lines 58, 93, 94 and 157, and Exhibit A prints each of them as an ordinary space.

The text is quoted from the Institute for Progress for the purpose of this examination. Institute for Progress, "The ARPA Model: A Reading List," January 31, 2024.

1. Metascience

2. The ARPA Model: A Reading List

3. A comprehensive syllabus on the ARPA model and its family tree

4. January 31st 2024

5. By Janika Schmitt and Jake Swett

6. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency, or DARPA, is well known for its role in a variety of major inventions, from GPS to the Internet. Since DARPA’s success, a variety of other “ARPAs” have been set up within the federal government, all hoping to produce cutting-edge research and inventions in a given sector. U.S. government ARPAs with substantive funding in FY2023 include DARPA (~$4B), ARPA-H ($1.5B), ARPA-E ($470M), and IARPA.

7. At IFP, we’ve been interested in the ARPA model for a while, and have written extensively about both the model’s strengths and its limitations. Can it be copied across the federal government, or in other countries? Is its success specific to the time and place it was founded? These are important questions. In our effort to better understand the ARPA model, we’ve compiled this list of resources. This guide was last updated in January of 2024, and we’ll maintain it as a living resource guide that is updated periodically.

8. The guide begins with DARPA itself, the original ARPA. Then we provide resources on the ARPA model generally, focusing on the “Heilmeier Catechism” of guiding questions, how ARPAs manage risk, and a literature on replicating ARPAs in different contexts. Then we share resources on the existing ARPA clones in the US and worldwide.

9. DARPA

10. DARPA was created by President Eisenhower in 1958, following the Soviet launch of the Sputnik satellite. It is the most famous and most successful ARPA.

11. Books

12. The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies: Perspectives on the U.S. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency by William B. Bonvillian, Richard Van Atta, and Patrick Windham (free PDF available)

13. The Department of Mad Scientists: How DARPA Is Remaking Our World, from the Internet to Artificial Limbs by Michael P. Belfiore

14. The Imagineers Of War: The Untold Story of DARPA, the Pentagon Agency That Changed the World by Sharon Weinberger

15. The Pentagon’s Brain: An Uncensored History of DARPA, America’s Top-Secret Military Research Agency by Annie Jacobsen

16. Strategic Computing: DARPA and the Quest for Machine Intelligence, 1983-1993 (History of Computing) by Alex Roland and Philip Shiman

17. DARPA Technical Accomplishments: An Historical Review of Selected DARPA Projects by Sidgney G. Reed, Richard H. Van Atta, and Seymour J. Deitchman

18. Lectures/Talks

19. An Uncensored History of DARPA by Annie Jacobsen

20. DARPAtv

21. DARPA Director Addresses PCAST on DARPA’s Mission by Arati Prabhakar

22. How DARPA is creating the impossible by Arati Prabhakar

23. Inside DARPA: The Pentagon’s Brain by Annie Jacobsen

24. Learning from DARPA by Ben Reinhardt

25. The DARPA Model for Transformative Technologies by William B. Bonvillian, Richard Van Atta, and Patrick Windham

26. Podcasts

27. Bringing DARPA’s innovation to health with Regina Dugan

28. How DARPA works with Dan Wattendorf

29. DARPA and Advanced Manufacturing with William B. Bonvillian

30. DARPA, IARPA, and other ARPAs by Progress, Potential, and Possibilities

31. Funding Breakthrough Research with Anna Goldstein

32. Inside DARPA, The Pentagon Agency Whose Technology Has ‘Changed the World’ with Sharon Weinberger

33. “Voices from DARPA” Podcast

34. Articles/Reports/Presentations

35. All That DARPA Can Be by William B. Bonvillian

36. An organizational perspective to funding science: Collaborator novelty at DARPA by Phech Colatat

37. DARPA Accomplishments: Seminal Contributions to National Security by DARPA

38. DARPA: Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency. 1958–2018 by DARPA

39. DARPA’s Very Expensive, Sci-Fi Projects from the Future by Adam Clark Estes

40. Defence research: Still in the lead? by Sharon Weinberger

41. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency and Innovation by DARPA

42. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency: Overview and Issues for Congress by the Congressional Research Service

43. Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency: Key Factors Drive Transition of Technologies, but Better Training and Data Dissemination Can Increase Success by the Government Accountability Office

44. The Functionality of DARPA is Politically Precarious by Samo Burja

45. Innovation at DARPA by DARPA

46. Interfaces, modularity and ecosystem emergence: How DARPA modularized the semiconductor ecosystem by Jennifer Kuan and Joel West

47. In the Realm of the Barely Feasible by Arati Prabhakar

48. Rethinking the Role of the State in Technology Development: DARPA and the Case for Embedded Network Governance by Erica Fuchs

49. “Special Forces” Innovation: How DARPA Attacks Problems by Regina E. Dugan and Kaigham J. Gabriel

50. The Connected Science Model for Innovation: The DARPA role by William B. Bonvillian

51. The merging of humans and machines is happening now by Arati Prabhakar

52. Transformation and Transition: DARPA’s Role in Fostering an Emerging Revolution in Military Affairs Volume 1 – Overall Assessment by the Institute for Defense Analyses

53. What is DARPA? How to Design Successful Technology Disruption by Alex Waibel

54. What makes DARPA tick? by Jeffrey Mervis

55. What else makes DARPA tick by Jeffrey Mervis

56. What is DARPA? The rich history of the Pentagon’s secretive tech agency by Kelsey D. Atherton

57. Why does DARPA work? by Ben Reinhardt

58. Changing Culture Through Visionary Thinking: Applying the DARPA Hard Test for Innovation by Tamara Carleton

59. Coordinated R&D Programs and the Creation of New Industries by Daniel P. Gross and Maria P. Roche

60. The ARPA model

61. What constitutes an ARPA, and what broad lessons about the model’s strengths and weaknesses are commonly accepted?

62. ARPA Playbook by Eric Gilliam

63. Changing the Business of Breakthroughs by Regina E. Dugan and Kaigham J. Gabriel

64. Funding Breakthrough Research: Promises and Challenges of the “ARPA Model” by Pierre Azoulay, Erica Fuchs, Anna P. Goldstein, and Michael Kearney

65. How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Intelligible Failure by Adam Russell

66. A Note on the Changing Faces of (D)ARPA by Eric Gilliam

67. How Advanced Research Project Agencies Pick Their Programs by RAND

68. The ARPA Model isn’t what you think it is by Ben Reinhardt

69. The Heilmeier Catechism

70. The catechism is a set of questions crafted by George H. Heilmeier, the director of DARPA from 1975-1977, meant to guide research proposals. It has been adapted at other ARPA institutions.

71. The Heilmeier Catechism by DARPA

72. ARPA-(H)eilmeier Questions by ARPA-H

73. ARPA-H: Behind the Heilmeier Questions by ARPA-H

74. Innovation’s New Catechism by Lisa Margonelli

75. Risk Management at ARPAs

76. By definition, ARPAs are working on projects that have a relatively high likelihood of technical failure. However, research outputs may also be misused or cause unintended consequences. We’ve collected some resources that address this challenge and propose methods for preparing for downside risk.

77. How ARPA-H can master the subtle art of risk-taking by Janika Schmitt, Jacob Swett, and Jassi Pannu via IFP

78. How DARPA Can Anticipate Downside Risk by Juan Cambeiro and Arielle D’Souza via IFP

79. How DARPA Can Proactively Shape Emerging Technologies by Tim Hwang and Caleb Watney via IFP

80. Preventing the Misuse of Breakthrough Health Research by Janika Schmitt via IFP

81. Research and Technology Protection Office by IARPA

82. Cloning DARPA

83. Resources on the possibilities and perils of replicating DARPA.

84. Cloning DARPA Successfully by Erica Fuchs

85. A New Model for Philanthropy? by William B. Bonvillian and Eric Schmidt

86. A growing number of governments hope to clone America’s DARPA by The Economist

87. DARPA ‘lookalikes’ must ground their dreams in reality by Nature

88. Embracing the DARPA Model for EdTech Innovation: Charting the Course with GPT-4 and Beyond by Getting Smart

89. New ways to pay for research could boost scientific progress by The Economist

90. No, We Don’t Need Another ARPA by John Paschkewitz and Dan Patt

91. Speculative Technologies Model by Speculative Technologies

92. The rise of “ARPA-everything” and what it means for science by Jeff Tollefson

93. Inspired by DARPA: A Global Comparison of Radical Innovation Government Agencies by Tamara Carleton

94. A DARPA-like agency could boost EU innovation — but cannot come at the expense of existing schemes by Nature

95. Assessing High-Risk, High-Benefit Research Organizations: The “DARPA Effect” by Maggie Marcum

96. Why Not a Civil DARPA? by RAND

97. ARPA for Everything

98. AgARDA

99. In the 2018 Farm Bill, Congress authorized the creation of AgARDA, a pilot effort designed to generate and deploy advanced agricultural technologies, research tools, and qualified projects and products. AgARDA has not yet been established because of lack of funding.

100. AGARDA Agriculture Advanced Research and Development Authority by USDA

101. The Case for AgARDA by Adin Richards via IFP

102. Could an ARPA Help Resurrect US Manufacturing? by William B. Bonvillian

103. ARPA-E

104. The “Advanced Research Projects Agency–Energy” was created in 2007 by the America COMPETES Act, and was funded in 2009.

105. Papers/Articles/Presentations

106. ARPA-E and DARPA: Applying the DARPA model to Energy Innovation; presentation and paper by William B. Bonvillian and Richard Van Atta

107. An Assessment of ARPA-E by The National Academies

108. ARPA-E is Here to Stay by Varun Mehra

109. Building a Culture of Risk-Taking by Jennifer E. Gerbi

110. DARPA and its ARPA-E and IARPA clones: a unique innovation organization model by William B. Bonvillian

111. Designing the public sector to promote sustainability transitions: Institutional principles and a case study of ARPA-E by Brendan Haley

112. Retrospective of the ARPA-E ALPHA Fusion Program

113. The Impact of Active Program Management on Innovation at ARPA-E by Anna Goldstein and Michael Kearney

114. Videos

115. Applying the DARPA Concepts to Energy Innovation: The Emerging ARPA-E Model by ITIF

116. ARPA-E and Funding R&D of Advanced Energy Technologies by Mark Hartney

117. Workshop Welcome and ARPA-E Primer by ARPA-E

118. ARPA for Education

119. Various ideas for an education ARPA have been proposed, including by the Biden administration.

120. Advanced Education Research and Development Fund (AERDF)

121. Innovation in the Education Sciences (the new IES) by Mark Schneider

122. Is a ‘DARPA for education’ finally happening? by Javeria Salman

123. Our New Sputnik Moment: How an ARPA model for education R&D could turn around a half-century of stagnation by Zach Graves and Robert Bellafiore Jr.

124. Why We Need a DARPA for Education by Russell Shilling

125. ARPA-H

126. The Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health is housed within the Department of Health and Human Services, and was established in March of 2022.

127. Papers/Articles/Reports

128. Advanced Research Projects Agency for Health (ARPA-H): Overview and Selected Issues for Congress by the Congressional Research Service

129. ARPA-H: Accelerating biomedical breakthroughs by Francis S. Collins, Tara A. Schwetz, Lawrence A. Tabak, and Eric S. Lander

130. ARPA-H Could Offer Taxpayers a Fairer Shake by Travis Whitfill and Mariana Mazzucato

131. ARPA-H FAQ by the White House

132. ARPA-H Should Zero In on Pandemic Prevention by Jassi Pannu, Janika Schmitt, and Jacob Swett

133. How ARPA-H’s Use-Inspired Research Can Accelerate Progress in Health by Janika Schmitt, Jassi Pannu, and Jacob Swett

134. Does NIH Need a DARPA? By Robert Cook-Deegan

135. An ARPA for Health Research? By Bhaven N. Sampat and Robert Cook-Deegan

136. Creating the Health Advanced Research Projects Agency (HARPA) by Michael Stebbins and Geoffrey Ling

137. HARPA website by The Suzanne Wright Foundation

138. Videos

139. A Conversation on the Vision for ARPA-H with Adam Russell

140. ARPA-H and HHS: A Discussion on the Future of American Biomedical Innovation with Renee Wegrzyn

141. ARPA-H Director Renee Wegrzyn on accelerating research to transform health care

142. ARPA-H Inaugural Director Dr. Renee Wegrzyn at 18th Non-Dilutive Funding Summit (2023)

143. Open Broad Agency Announcement (BAA) Virtual Proposers’ Day by ARPA-H

144. The Patients Are Waiting: How ARPA-H Will Change Lives Now by The Suzanne Wright Foundation

145. ARPA-I

146. The Advanced Research Projects Agency – Infrastructure was established within the Department of Transportation in June 2023. It aims to ensure “that the future of transportation in America is safe, secure, efficient, and resilient for all.”

147. Advanced Research Projects Agency – Infrastructure (ARPA-I) by the Office of the Secretary of Transportation

148. Applying ARPA-I: A Proven Model For Transportation Infrastructure by Andy Gordon, Aleksandra Srdanovic, and Cristina Velasquez

149. IARPA

150. The Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity serves as an ARPA for the intelligence community, designing tools and inventions that are valuable to intelligence agencies. It was founded in 2006, and most of its research is unclassified and publicly available.

151. Papers/Articles/Reports

152. How to Predict the Future by Jason Matheny and Santi Ruiz via IFP

153. Interview: ARPA Director Jason Matheny advances tech tools for US espionage by Elisabeth Eaves

154. Videos

155. A Conversation with IARPA Director Dr. Catherine Marsh | The Cipher Brief

156. ARPAs around the World

157. Other ARPA-style agencies around the world include Japan’s Moonshot R&D and Germany’s Cybersecurity Innovation Agency.

158. SPRIN-D

159. The German, non-military counterpart to DARPA, SPRIN-D was established in 2019 and funds research across various fields, such as biotechnology, energy, and computing.

160. Articles

161. CLOSING THE GAP. Recommendations for the creation and expansion of innovation financing in Germany by SPRIN-D

162. Get to know SPRIND by SPRIN-D

163. Podcast

164. SPRIND Podcast [mostly in German]

165. JEDI

166. The Joint European Disruptive Initiative (JEDI) was launched in 2018 with the goal of positioning Europe as a leader in the development of breakthrough technologies. It organizes competitions (“Grand Challenges”) to foster technological or scientific advancements.

167. Articles

168. Return of the JEDI: European disruptive technology initiative ready to launch by Daniela Vincenti

169. JEDI – the European DARPA by Lesley Brown

170. JEDI Disruption – the PodCast of the Joint European Disruptive Initiative, on Strategic technologies

171. ARIA

172. The Advanced Research and Invention Agency is a new British agency, announced in 2021 and formally established in 2023. Like SPRIN-D, it funds research across diverse areas, from programmable plants to robotic hardware to climate monitoring.

173. Papers/Articles/Reports

174. Dominic Cummings got his British Darpa. Can he make it work? by Matt Clifford

175. Inside ARIA, the UK’s Bet to Build Scientific Revolutions by Eric Gilliam

176. How should the proposed Advanced Research and Invention Agency be regulated? by Edinburgh Law School

177. How the UK’s new innovation agency works by David Matthews

178. The bosses of Britain’s new research agency explain its innovations by The Economist

179. Visions of ARPA: Embracing Risk, Transforming Technology by Policy Exchange

180. Videos

181. ARIA: Betting on science with Ilan Gur and Matt Clifford

182. Janika Schmitt is a Program Officer at Sentinel Bio.

183. Jake Swett is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at IFP and the Executive Director of Blueprint Biosecurity.