This document discusses unleashing innovation at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS). It provides background on NPS, noting that it was founded in 1909 and focuses on defense-related graduate education. It argues that NPS, with its students who are operational military officers and its focus on defense issues, is well-positioned to drive innovation for the Navy and Department of Defense. However, it notes that recent oversight of NPS has constrained its ability to innovate and experiment. It highlights some recent innovative work done by NPS students and faculty in areas like autonomous drone swarms and social network analysis. It concludes that fostering more innovation at NPS could provide strategic advantages for the military.

1. Unleashing Innovation at the Naval Postgraduate School
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2. Unleashing Innovation at the Naval Postgraduate School
“Experimentation can be highly disruptive and thrives in a culture which embraces innovation and risk-taking.”
The Honorable Ray Mabus, Secretary of the Navy1
On 15 October 2015 Secretary of the Navy, Ray Mabus issued two important memoranda with
the following subject lines: “Increase Resources and Opportunities for Experimentation” and
“Afloat and Ashore Installation Policies for Experimentation and Exercises.”2 The stated aimof
both of these documents is to change the current “culture of caution” in order to foster “a
culture of innovation.” The documents direct the Navy and Marine Corps to “[re]establish
robust and agile experimentation” so as to achieve “a strategic innovation advantage.”3 This
essay will argue that the fastest and most efficient way to ignite a culture of innovation across
the Navy and gain truly strategic advantages is by leveraging the incredible human capital
resident at the Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) in Monterey, California.
Innovation, experimentation and defense related research have always been the focus of NPS.
With shrinking defense budgets and downsizing, NPS should be encouraged to innovate and
experiment more. NPS is unlike any other defense related university or academy as it operates
based on an entrepreneurial, largely reimbursable budget that fosters competition for a wide
variety of scientific research directly related to enhancing the combat effectiveness of the Navy,
Marine Corps, and other military services and government agencies.
A Little Bit of History
The Naval Postgraduate School (NPS) was founded in 1909 at the U.S. Naval Academy. In 1951
NPS relocated to Monterey, California and evolved into a world class graduate research
university focused on Navy and defense related curricula that support over fifty different
graduate degree programs across a wide variety of scientific disciplines. While NPS was created
to support U.S Navy and Marine Corps officers, it has evolved into a truly joint institution that is
open to all U.S. government agencies. The stated mission of NPS is, and has always been, to
“provide relevant and unique advanced education and research programs to increase the
combat effectiveness of commissioned officers of the naval service to enhance the security of
the United States.”4
1 Secretary of the Navy, Memorandum for Chief of Naval Operations Commandant of the MarineCorps Assistant
Secretary of the Navy Research,Development & Acquisition (ASN (RD&A)), IncreaseResources and Opportunities
for Experimentation, October 15, 2015.
2 Secretary of the Navy, Memorandum for Chief of Naval Operations Commandant of the MarineCorps, Afloatand
Ashore Installation Policiesfor Experimentation and Exercises,October 15, 2015.
3 Ibid.
4 Chief of Naval Operations,OPNAVINST 5450.210D, Naval PostgraduateSchool Mission and Functions,30 March
2012.

3. “New technology is common, new thinking is rare.”5 Sir Peter Blake
Why NPS Matters More Today
NPS is home to approximately 1,600 resident students and nearly 1,000 more who participate
via distance learning from across all the military services, government agencies, and our global
partners. Today a large percentage of NPS’s student have years of combat experience due to
the ongoing conflicts following 9-11. These combat experienced, warrior scholars are teamed
up with a world class faculty that is drawn to tough, national security and defense related
problems. This unique national defense focused environment provides a learning experience
across dozens of academic disciplines that is not replicated anywhere else in the world. When
combat tested graduate students come in contact with world class scholars, incredible
innovation, learning, and new thinking is the natural result. Those who have been fortunate
enough to attend NPS understand this benefit intuitively.
NPS encourages students to study and research defense related topics which interest them.
NPS students tend to naturally focus on areas that they already have had first-hand experience
with in the field. After they graduate these same students then go back to their operational
units with more knowledge, new thinking and continue to innovate as end users. Here are just a
few of the most recently published theses at NPS from the class of March 2015 that
demonstrate this point:
“Crowdsourcing Intelligence to Combat Terrorism: Harnessing Bottom-Up Collection to Prevent
Lone-Wolf Terror Attacks.”
“Preempting Mass Murder: Improving Law Enforcement Risk Assessments of Persons with
Mental Illness”
“Syria and the Rise of Radical Islamist Groups”
“Privacy in the Face of Surveillance: Fourth Amendment Considerations for Facial Recognition
Technology”
“Mobile Konami Codes: Analysis of Android Malware Services Utilizing Sensor and Resource-
based State Changes”
“Improving Maritime Domain Awareness Using Neural Networks for Target of Interest
Classification”
“Littoral Combat Ship Crew Scheduling”6
5 Quote by Sir Peter Blake as found on teachbytes.com and technoliterate.com, 11 November 2015.
6 Naval PostgraduateSchool,Compilation of Abstracts,Unrestricted Theses, Dissertations,and Final Projects,
March 2015.

4. The list of fascinating topics goes on and on for several pages. NPS students put out on average
between 100-180 theses in dozens of different scientific fields every quarter.
NPS has a unique, competitive driven research model amongst government funded graduate
research education facilities. At NPS professors are only paid for nine months on average, and
have to compete for a minimum of 3 months of their salary by obtaining research funding from
U.S. government and select civilian sponsors focused on naval and defense related issues. This
competitive model drives a world class NPS faculty to work even harder to earn research
monies and opportunities across dozens of scientific disciplines.
NPS loses is glow
In 2012 NPS came under the scrutiny of the U.S. Navy Inspector General and U.S. Navy Audit
Service. NPS was accused of being mismanaged and not compliant with fiduciary and other U.S.
Navy regulations. Strangely enough, one of the accusations from this period was that NPS was
doing too much research, and expanding its work force when the rest of the Navy was
downsizing. NPS did have some process and management issues, but these problems were all
remedied by the end of 2013, after new senior leaders at NPS reorganized the staff and
effectively addressed all the deficiencies and recommendations noted by the Navy Inspector
General report of 2012 as well as follow on reports by the Navy Audit service.
Despite all this effort, some senior civilian leaders in Washington D.C. continue to be distrustful
of NPS and it is unique work acceptance and research model. This mistrust, or lack of
understanding depending on one’s perspective, has created a risk averse environment
regarding NPS. Auditability, cost savings, and full compliance with financial regulations seemto
be the primary focus regarding NPS today. Constant data calls, investigations, inspections,
audits, and assist visits have significantly constrained NPS’s workforce, morale, and
productivity. NPS staff and faculty are being driven to focus more and more on administrative
matters rather than fostering the pursuit of scientific discovery and innovation.
Many NPS staff and faculty report that they are fatigued, over trained, and cannot focus on
their primary mission in many cases because of the level of micromanagement from outside of
NPS. This over inspection and scrutiny of NPS has caused a brain drain, with over 25% of the
faculty that were present in 2012 leaving for other universities and opportunities. NPS remains
under a strict hiring freeze which has greatly reduced the flexibility of both the staff and faculty
to innovate or experiment with new curricula and courses of study.
NPS continues to persevere and innovate, however, like a ship trailing a shaft, full power is not
being directed to maximize innovation. The desire to achieve 100% auditability and compliance
with regulations appears to be the primary direction for NPS presently, which seems at odds
with the recent push for more experimentation and innovation by both the Secretary of
Defense and the Secretary of the Navy.

5. NPS’s Innovative Spirit and Cycle of Innovation
The faculty, staff and students at NPS are a national treasure and natural engine for innovation.
NPS students, which include front line operators from all of the U.S. military services as well as
other national, state and local first responders, routinely tackle real world problems and issues
and make them their singular focus in the form of research and theses. After graduation these
junior officers then return to the operational fleet in their respective services and drive change
and innovation from the inside. NPS graduates become leaders in their fields, from space
exploration to command and control of the U.S. military and government. NPS has contributed
significantly to U.S. domestic efforts as well, with recent NPS graduates from the Center for
Homeland Defense and Security playing leading roles during our nation’s most recent domestic
crises, including the Boston Marathon bombing, landslides in Washington state, and the Navy
Yard shooting in Washington D.C..
The NPS education cycle drives innovation, research, and defense related problem solving,
continually benefiting both the Navy and the Nation. Anyone who has ever attended NPS
intuitively understands this win-win relationship, and the benefits of a NPS degree. The
defense related networking and research that happens amongst NPS students and faculty is
unsurpassed anywhere in the world. The lasting bonds between both the faculty and the
students continue to drive innovation at sea, in the air, on land and now in cyber space long
after graduation. NPS students continue their education when they return back to operational
military units, and many times relay what they learn back to the faculty at NPS for the rest of
their military careers. It is difficult to capture these intangible benefits on a spreadsheet or
power point slide, but those who are knowledgeable understand how this cycle drives
innovation throughout the Navy, the Department of Defense, and across the U.S. government
enterprise.
NPS vs. Civilian Graduate Education
For those who are not knowledgeable about the U.S. Navy or military, it might seemreasonable
to ask why does the Navy need its own graduate research university in 2015? Why not just
send all Navy and military officers to civilian graduate schools? The simple and most obvious
answer is that MIT, Cal Poly Tech, Stanford, Harvard, and all the other prestigious graduate
universities across the United States simply do not focus on defense related studies. NPS is one
of only a few defense focused, accredited graduate research universities around the world. Its
student body and faculty exist to study, research, experiment and innovate in defense related
scientific fields. When you bring the nations’ smartest and most motivated professional
military officers together in one place and subject them to a rigorous course of scientific and
defense related education, innovation is the natural byproduct.
When a military officer attends a civilian university for graduate education the real beneficiary
more often than not is the civilian institution. Civilian graduate students and their faculty gain
the benefit of the professional military officer’s real world experiences at sea or in combat

6. zones. Military officers are experienced leaders by the time they arrive in civilian graduate
classrooms, whereas their peers are usually not. Civilian graduate institutions are simply not
geared to naval and defense related fields of study, and thus, do not focus on how to improve
combat effectiveness and win wars at sea, on land, in the air or in cyber space.
While there is no doubt that officers attending civilian graduate schools can benefit the Navy
and the nation by infusing outside of the box thinking back into military culture, there are also
lost opportunities and costs associated with this diffusion of talent away from Navy and other
military services. NPS offers Navy and military officers opportunities to network and bond with
peers in their chosen field of study across all the military services. NPS’s joint international
military learning environment fosters collaboration across all the armed services as well as
those of some of our key partners and allies around the world.
A typical Navy lieutenant or Marine Corps captain serving at NPS will encounter and most likely
befriend at least one colleague from a foreign military partner who is also attending NPS. These
lasting relationships benefit the individuals, their particular service, as well as their nations.
Often times foreign partners send their best and brightest junior officers to NPS. These NPS
graduates go on to become the leaders of their respective military services. The intangible
benefits from international military networking at the most formative stage of an officer’s
career is another hidden benefit that an NPS education brings the Navy and the nation.
Military officers usually arrive as students at NPS somewhere between their fourth, fifth or
sixth year of active duty service. Attendance at NPS incurs a further service obligation of at
least two to three years, which means most NPS graduates intend to make the U.S. armed
forces their careers. This direct investment in human capital for the Navy (i.e. an NPS graduate
degree) is compounded by the fact that much of the learning at NPS happens between
professional military students who are driven and competitive by nature. This chain reaction of
learning is captured and recycled back to the fleet every quarter as NPS operates continuously
throughout the year.
When an officer attends NPS instead of a civilian graduate university, that officer will study
defense related curricula, bond with peers who have chosen the military as their careers,
befriend foreign military officers who will likely someday lead their services, and then upon
graduation cycle back to operational units where their education will further enhance the
combat effectiveness of the U.S. armed forces for years to come.

7. “Our students are consummate professionals at every level, our faculty are world-class, and our educational
programs are relevant, adaptable and of immediate value to the Navy and DOD.” 7
Ronald A. Route, Vice Admiral (Ret), President, Naval Postgraduate School
Recent Innovations at NPS
NPS students are currently working and studying problems in new emerging defense related
fields such as cyber defense; big data analytics; autonomous swarming unmanned aerial
vehicles; climate change, design thinking, and social network analysis. Innovation occurs at NPS
because of a fortunate set of conditions which includes the opportune geographic location of
NPS near Silicon Valley. NPS has always had deep ties to innovators and researchers in the
Valley, and has already started partnering with the Defense Innovation Unit Experimental (DIU-
X) in Mountain View, California to leverage this capacity.
Recent innovation and experimentation at NPS does not tend to make splashy headlines in the
national media. One example of ground breaking innovation at NPS, however, which did grab
some national attention involves a team of students and faculty lead by Dr. Timothy Chung. Dr.
Chung and his team have been studying how to get autonomous unmanned aerial vehicles
(UAV) to fly together in order to defend U.S. Navy ships against potential swarms of attackers.
By using, small inexpensive autonomous UAVs, Dr. Chung and his team hope to reverse the
swarm, and use this technology to defeat would be attackers. His team recently set a world
record by flying 50 autonomous UAVs together, successfully controlling them using on board
artificial intelligence without continuous communication with a ground based supercomputer.
No other robotics lab in the United States has been able to accomplish this feat.
Another recent example of innovation at NPS is the work performed by Lieutenant Colonel
John Alt whose Data Analytics Team has developed social network analyzers that have detected
hidden clandestine terrorist networks and improvised explosive device (IED) makers attempting
to hide in the dark web of the internet. Lieutenant Colonel Alt’s team worked across different
academic fields, including statistics, operations research, computer science, information
systems and business to develop new methods and tools for big data problems. These methods
and tools can help screen valuable pieces of information from the white noise of the internet,
and extract weak indicators which lead to uncovering hidden networks operating clandestinely
on unclassified networks. Lieutenant Colonel Alt and his team are working with both the Office
of Naval Intelligence and Silicon Valley data analysts to enhance this new capability.8
These are just two examples of the innovative and experimental research that happens at NPS
day in and day out. NPS’s greatest strengths are its professional military officer student body;
7 Ronald A. Route, President’s Message, Naval PostgraduateSchool In Review Magazine, February 2014 edition,
p.1.
8 President, Naval PostgraduateSchool,SECNAV INNOVATION AWARD IN DATA ANALYTICS submission,30 October
2015.

8. its world class faculty and staff; and its successful history of defense related graduate research
education.
Conclusion: Charting the Course Ahead
Exciting and innovative research projects by students and faculty are not new to NPS. This is
exactly what this defense oriented graduate research university was conceived to do back in
1909. For more than a century NPS has expanded, contracted, evolved and adapted in order to
provide “relevant and unique advanced education and research programs to increase the
combat effectiveness of commissioned officers of the naval service.”9
In industry and the armed services, innovation comes from end users. The AK-47 assault rifle,
the nuclear powered submarine, and the Aegis weapon systemwere all envisioned, built and
perfected by the end user—military professionals. While lots of innovation happens in civilian
labs and workshops across the United States every day, almost none of it is focused on winning
wars at sea. Strategic advantages for the U.S. armed forces from innovation, whether it be with
electric rail guns, unmanned aerial vehicles, or cyber systems will come from the civilian and
military personnel who study and work with these systems day in and day out—the end users.
If the Navy and nation are serious about expanding and encouraging more defense related
innovation at a faster pace, then the most logical place to start is at NPS. NPS already has the
existing infrastructure and human capital to expand innovation across the military services. By
simply encouraging NPS to experiment more and tolerate some failures, the level of innovation
would rise without a large increase in direct budget. If NPS could hire more faculty and
researchers, and was allowed to pursue more joint programs with its sister services and other
government agencies, this too would increase the ability of NPS to innovate.
NPS is a uniquely funded Navy command. In 2014 NPS’s operating budget was roughly 65%
reimbursable and 35% direct funded.10 NPS research and innovation is driven largely by
competition for reimbursable dollars from the Department of Defense and other U.S.
government agencies. This capitalistic driven research model fuels innovation, growth and
development. Because of this unique model NPS tends to naturally grow and expand both its
innovation capability and its work force. In 2012 it was this unchecked, seemingly unregulated
growth that caught the eye of Navy inspectors and auditors. Since that time, however, near
continuous inspections, audits, and assist visits have swung the pendulum away from growth
towards contraction. Today NPS continues to shrink both its workforce and its ability to
innovate. NPS is forbidden to take on any new work that will require more FTE (full time
equivalent—the hours worked by one full time employee). This limits the type and scope of
research (i.e. innovation opportunities) that NPS can currently engage in.
9 This is the actual mission of NPS as stated in OPNAVINST 5450.210D dtd 30 March 2012.
10 Naval PostgraduateSchool 2014 Annual Report & Fact Book, page 49.

9. This limit on NPS’s workforce seems to run directly counter to the Secretary of the Navy’s edict
“to restore adequate resourcing and opportunities for experimentation” and to “continue to
evaluate ways and means to reduce barriers and cost, time, and effort required for
experimentation.”11 The quickest and most immediate way to stimulate more innovation
across the Navy is to remove the restrictions and barriers that are currently in place at NPS. A
simple cap on the upper level of NPS FTE, and or end strength, would provide a check on
unregulated workforce growth. If NPS could hire up to 1100 civilian faculty and staff this would
stimulate new research and innovation across emerging areas of study, such as robotics, cyber
warfare, design thinking, and network analysis. NPS should also be encouraged to partner with
other military and government services and agencies in order to leverage economies of scale in
emerging technologies and defense related academic disciplines. A joint vice Navy centric
approach to innovation and experimentation at NPS would increase the opportunity to gain
strategic advantages across the Department of Defense and U.S. government.
Innovation is a complex process. Innovation that will provide the U.S. with strategic military
advantages will come from its end users—military professionals. NPS has a large concentrated
group of military professionals focused on innovation and education in defense related fields.
The most logical way to increase the Navy’s opportunities to innovate is to fuel new and diverse
fields of study at NPS. NPS would not require any significant growth in direct appropriated
funding due to its unique model which is based on competition for reimbursable budget across
the U.S. government enterprise. This would be a low risk, low cost way for the Navy to quickly
improve its ability to innovate.
11 Secretary of the Navy, Memorandum for Chief of Naval Operations Commandant of the MarineCorps Assistant
Secretary of the Navy Research,Development & Acquisition (ASN (RD&A)), IncreaseResource and Opportunities
for Experimentation, October 15, 2015.