Dear Colleagues,
Let me first thank you for your interest in ARPA-E. I want to use this opportunity to explain and elaborate on ARPA-E’s vision and report on where we are now.
We are living in challenging times, but are surrounded by opportunities. The widespread use of fossil fuels has long driven the engine of economic growth, and yet our dependence on these fuels severely threatens our national and environmental security due to our growing foreign energy dependence as well as climate change. Business as usual is not an option, as the outcome will be devastating. This is true not only for the US, but also for all nations in this interconnected world. The nation that successfully grows its economy with more efficient energy use, a clean domestic energy supply, and a smart energy infrastructure will lead the global economy of the 21st century. In many cases, we are lagging behind. We as a nation need to change course with fierce urgency.
Let us try to comprehend the scale of this challenge with the following question: What were those innovations of the 20th century that changed the course of humankind’s history? Perhaps the most important one was the Haber-Bosch process of creating artificial fertilizers by fixing atmospheric nitrogen to form ammonia. It touched humanity like none other because it led to massive increase in food production and an almost four-fold increase in global population in 100 years. But there were plenty of other game-changers: creating semi-dwarf, high-yield strains of wheat that introduced the green revolution; antibiotics; polio vaccination; the transistor and integrated circuits; electrification; the airplane; nuclear energy; optical and wireless communication; the internet; and so on. Now imagine all of these innovations happening in a span of just 10-20 years: That is the scale and pace of game-changing innovations that we now need to address the energy and climate change challenge of our and future generations.
ARPA-E was created to be a catalyst for such a transformation, and to do so with fierce urgency. Our nation’s history is replete with examples of pioneers and entrepreneurs who took risks. These innovators often failed initially, but quickly learned from those failures, competed against each other, and innovated in both technology and business to create the largest industrial base the world has ever seen. ARPA-E’s goal is to tap into this truly American ethos, and to identify and support the pioneers of the future. With the best R&D infrastructure in the world, a thriving innovation ecosystem in business and entrepreneurship, and a generation of youth that is willing to engage with fearless intensity, we have all the ingredients necessary for future success. The goal of ARPA-E is to harness them and make a full-court press to address our technological gaps and leapfrog over current approaches. In this respect, ARPA-E has made a great start and it is worth reflecting on its 8 months of incubation and delivery.
The first Funding Opportunity Announcement (FOA) was made in May 2009, and it received an unprecedented response from the R&D community: 3,700 concept papers, 334 full proposals, and eventually 37 selected for funding. All this happened in a span of 6 months. We are now in the process of finalizing the award agreements, and we plan to award 80 percent of them by the end of 2009. This is a record setting pace and is being done by an immensely dedicated staff.
As the numbers suggest, only one percent of proposals were selected for funding. By all measures, this is very low. To some extent, this depended on the level of funding. ARPA-E could have easily broken it down into small funding levels and made many more awards. But the decision was made – and I concur - that ARPA-E ought to be selective and fund the most game-changing ideas with significant levels of financial support that will enable the recipients to accelerate technical progress so that after the projects are completed, the technologies are ready to be adopted by the other stakeholders.
I am quite sure that there were many excellent proposals that were not funded. We urge you to return to ARPA-E with your ideas for future workshops and to help us create new programs. We also plan to organize an annual event where we not only want to highlight the technologies that we support, but also invite teams that did not get funded, so that we can connect them to other offices within DOE as well as other funding agencies and organizations. In short, we know that we cannot financially support everyone, but we also realize that we need to build a large community beyond ARPA-E for our nation to change course with fierce urgency.
If we are to foster rapid technological innovations, we also need to innovate in creating a system and a process that enables them to thrive. We are now creating that “DNA” of ARPA-E. First and foremost, we are recruiting a team of some of the best and brightest program directors who have one foot in science, with the other in technology and business, and who are willing to serve the nation at this critical juncture in our history. These will be term appointments for three - four years. In addition, we are also forming a technology outreach team, whose responsibility will be to identify pathways for ARPA-E funded technologies to create business opportunities and be adopted in the market, and explain to the public and all stakeholders how these innovations could be beneficial to society. Finally, we have an operations team that is streamlining the transactions and interactions between ARPA-E and the awardees. The value of an ARPA-E award will be much more than just money. Awardees will have the opportunity to draw on the expertise of three ARPA-E teams: technical program, technology outreach, and operations.
It is very important that we get our DNA right, especially in these early stages. I thank you for taking interest in and working with ARPA-E. I would be delighted to receive feedback from you about how we are doing, and how we could serve you better.
We are now launching our second round of FOAs for a total of $100M. In contrast to the first FOA, which was open to all topics related to energy, these FOAs are more focused. The topics resulted from several workshops that we had over the last three months, where we received input from the technical community. A few of the workshop participants included those who did not get funded in the first round, but who returned to educate ARPA-E about specific technical barriers and potential game changing ideas. We urge you to continue informing and educating us through such forums, and also through one-on-one interactions with the program directors. In short, ARPA-E is looking for the best ideas and we are coming to the table with an open mind.
On behalf of the ARPA-E team, thank you again.
Sincerely,
Arun Majumdar
Director, ARPA-E