The U.S. Navy’s Office of Naval Research (ONR) helped Stanford University establish an academic center to educate and train the next generation of innovators to support the U.S. government’s national security objectives.
ONR said Friday the Gordon Knot Center for National Security Innovation seeks to connect defense, commercial and academic organizations by inspiring the future workforce and promoting technology areas of interest to the office.
“A Gordian Knot is a metaphor for an intractable problem,” said Rear Adm. Lorin Shelby, chief of naval research.
The center’s three lines of effort are national security innovation education, training for innovators and insight, integration and policy outreach. ONR started its partnership with Stanford when the service awarded grants in 1946 to Fred Terman, the late dean of the university’s engineering school who put the funds into Stanford Electronics Research Lab.
“Today, our nation faces many intractable problems, from great power competition to non-state actor threats, as we reimagine what naval power looks like in the 21st century. We’re seeking new disruptive technologies, new operational concepts, and new types of program management and mindsets,” Shelby added.