Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:
Anonymous wrote:FY 2025 FFRDC Attrition Rates (Page 34, Figure 15) -- Rand and Mitre are the only two FFRDCs with double-digit attrition.
http://www.cto.mil/wp-content/uploads/2026/06/Defense-Research-Enterprise-Review.pdf
They were targeted.
By who? For what?
They are gatekeepers. They evaluate systems (products and vendors) with an
unbiased viewpoint and cannot personally profit off their recommendations. Inconvenient truths that can cause others to lose business.
The report is correct in identifying the nsec ceiling as an arbitrary barrier. In today's world FFRDC funding is in the noise.
Why wasn't attrition high for CNA, IDA, Aerospace, LL, and SEI?
The CNA FFRDC is very small and very narrowly focused on a single customer (DoN).
SEI is similar to CNA, but a bit larger, and also with a narrow customer focus.
Aerospace FFRDC is mid-sized, but also very focused on DoAF and closely related organizations.
MITRE tries to be everything to everyone, civilian agencies and the military and the IC. It has lacked focus in recent years. Customers have been unhappy at being charged high rates for inexperienced people or for pseudo-experts. MITRE needs to focus and needs to return to its roots of providing specialized genuine scientific/technical expertise (and move away from general IT support). I doubt this will happen.