10 U.S.C. § 4127 — Defense Innovation Unit

(a) Establishment. The Defense Department has a Defense Innovation Unit, called the “Unit” here. (b) Director. The Secretary appoints the Unit's Director from people with substantial innovation and commercial-technology experience, as the Secretary determines. (c) Authority. The Director heads the Unit, serves as the Secretary's principal staff assistant on Unit matters, reports directly to the Secretary without an intervening authority, and may give the Secretary views directly without another Defense official's approval or concurrence. (d) Responsibilities. The Unit must (1) find and support development and testing of commercial technologies that could be used by Defense; (2) speed adoption or integration of commercial technologies to change military capacity and capabilities; (3) be the main link between Defense and the national-security innovation base, including entrepreneurs, startups, commercial technology companies, and venture-capital sources; (4) conduct activities strengthening that base; (5) coordinate and harmonize Defense activities involving commercial, dual-use, and related innovation; (6) coordinate and advise Defense efforts to develop, buy, and field nontraditional capabilities; (7) work with the Joint Staff and combatant commanders to identify operational problems that commercial-sector nontraditional or dual-use capabilities could address; (8) using Unit funds, (A) select projects for service-level innovation organizations, (B) give those organizations funds, and (C) monitor execution; (9) link Defense with nontraditional contractors, investors, and Federal departments pursuing similar capabilities; (10) lead work with industry, academia, and other nongovernmental entities to build (A) domestic capacity in innovative, commercial, and dual-use technologies and nontraditional contractors and (B) allied and partner capacity in those areas; and (11) conduct other activities the Secretary considers appropriate. (e) Partnerships. (1) The Director must identify and support multi-stakeholder research and innovation partnerships that could produce technologies, processes, products, or solutions for national defense or security and aim to transfer or commercialize their work product, including work using Government intellectual property licensed under paragraph (3). (2) Support may include funding or resources, participation, technical advice, suggesting participants, insight into desired defense solutions, and other support the Director considers appropriate. (3) When the Director considers appropriate, the Director must seek to inform potential participants about available Government-developed intellectual property that may be licensed to the partnership. (4) Each year the Director must report to the Secretary and congressional defense committees^* on supported partnerships' activities, advances, outcomes, and work product. (f) Regional offices. (1) The Director may establish and maintain Unit offices inside or outside the United States to reach out to and streamline interactions with private industry, academia, and other mission partners. (2) If the Director does so, the Director must develop location-selection strategy and criteria; issue needed operating rules, regulations, policies, or guidance; and post the information publicly on a Defense website. (g) Definitions. (1) “Multi-stakeholder research and innovation partnership” means a partnership of any combination of at least two of: (A) higher-education institutions with research and innovation ability; (B) nonprofits providing policy, research, outreach, operations, organizational, management, testing, evaluation, technology-transfer, legal, financial, or advocacy expertise; (C) for-profit commercial businesses, whether public or private, early-stage or mature, incorporated or using another ownership structure; and (D) Federal departments or agencies with expertise, operations, or resources related to the partnership's objectives. (2) “Nontraditional capability” means a solution to an operational problem that can significantly use commercial innovation or outside capital with few dependencies on fielded systems. (3) “Nontraditional defense contractor” has the meaning in section 3014. This section does not define it.