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Immediate Release

Department of Defense Announces Industry Engagement Day for the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER)

The DoD announced today an Industry Engagement Day event for the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) to be held at Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Laboratory (JHU-APL) on July 26, 2022.

RDER is an initiative to encourage prototyping and experimentation in pursuit of solutions to Joint problems. Components will propose experiments to be conducted in near-term Joint exercises and compete for RDER funding. The Secretary will select among proposed experiments based on alignment to the Joint Warfighting Concept and potential to yield demonstrable warfighting utility.

This Industry Engagement Day is an opportunity for industry to learn about the RDER effort’s vision, proposal cycle, technical priorities, capability challenges, and opportunities that require private-sector support. RDER will spearhead efforts to develop capabilities that support the joint warfighter, including, but not limited to, fires, command and control, logistics, and capabilities that will drive information advantage. These efforts will culminate with multi-competent experiments that combine multiple prototypes and capabilities to expeditiously explore new concepts and create new capabilities.

“The private sector will play a key role in the RDER initiative,” said Heidi Shyu, Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering. “Engagements like these are essential to ensure that we all understand the warfighting challenges and solicit the most creative ideas from industry.”  

The Industry Engagement Day will include several classified briefings on the RDER program, proposal criteria, and technology capability requirements. Following the event, there will be breakout sessions to discuss industry proposals with representatives from the RDER program. Advance registration is required, and all registrants must submit their clearance via a Visitor Access Request (VAR) to JHU-APL. The Industry Engagement Day announcement is on Sam.gov at: https://sam.gov/opp/ea2e193b81e34cc383de54ddb960c2bf/view.

About RDER

The Secretary of Defense established the Rapid Defense Experimentation Reserve (RDER) initiative through the Defense Planning Guidance (Fiscal Year 2023-2027). RDER’s goal is to expand multi-DoD component experimentation in a structured, multi-year campaign of learning to accelerate new capabilities to fill critical joint warfighting capability gaps. RDER will accelerate Joint innovation, expand International Partnerships and Multi-lateral engagement, focus on Service joint experimentation, quickly demonstrate and assess innovative ideas, and provide feedback to future Warfighting concept development. Read more about RDER at: https://ac.cto.mil/pe/rder/.

About USD(R&E)

The Under Secretary of Defense for Research and Engineering (USD(R&E) is the Chief Technology Officer of the Department of Defense. The USD(R&E) champions research, science, technology, engineering, and innovation to maintain the United States military’s technological advantage. Learn more at www.cto.mil, follow us on Twitter @DoDCTO, or visit us on LinkedIn at https://www.linkedin.com/company/ousdre.