FFRDCs

[Anonymous]

Appalling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Appalling.

What is appalling?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all will pass in a year. Are FFRDCs a bit bloated? Probably. Is it worth the risk to demolish them? No. Freeze their ceiling and step up audits.

What risk? Are you paying attention to what's happening in government?

If there’s another terrorist attack after all of these RIFs and resignations, who has the analytic shop to advise on what to do next? That shop takes decades to cultivate. Get rid of it and see what alternatives you have. That my friend is the risk.

How many analysts sit around twiddling their thumbs?

I have noticed staff from some of the studies and analysis FFRDCs are very very young - like a year out of undergrad + 1 year MA in security studies. They have no work experience besides writing a term paper or two in school.

Are these the folks my office is shelling out $800k+ to advise us on grand strategy with a 70%+ multiplier for overhead?

There's one FFRDC... that won't be named... who seems to be hiring a lot of very young, inexperienced FTE and placing them on our task orders. They are energetic but their work just isn't sophisticated, on average. What's worse, it seems this particular FFRDC is now letting these kiddos talk to news outlets and write articles in the press with minimal supervision... often about topics related to the task orders we are paying them to do. Sometimes they are saying the most idiotic things to get attention and I know the report we paid them for will have their names as coauthors on it, which just invites the current administration to give us even more hassle. It's incredibly frustrating.

yikes

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all will pass in a year. Are FFRDCs a bit bloated? Probably. Is it worth the risk to demolish them? No. Freeze their ceiling and step up audits.

What risk? Are you paying attention to what's happening in government?

If there’s another terrorist attack after all of these RIFs and resignations, who has the analytic shop to advise on what to do next? That shop takes decades to cultivate. Get rid of it and see what alternatives you have. That my friend is the risk.

How many analysts sit around twiddling their thumbs?

I have noticed staff from some of the studies and analysis FFRDCs are very very young - like a year out of undergrad + 1 year MA in security studies. They have no work experience besides writing a term paper or two in school.

Are these the folks my office is shelling out $800k+ to advise us on grand strategy with a 70%+ multiplier for overhead?

There's one FFRDC... that won't be named... who seems to be hiring a lot of very young, inexperienced FTE and placing them on our task orders. They are energetic but their work just isn't sophisticated, on average. What's worse, it seems this particular FFRDC is now letting these kiddos talk to news outlets and write articles in the press with minimal supervision... often about topics related to the task orders we are paying them to do. Sometimes they are saying the most idiotic things to get attention and I know the report we paid them for will have their names as coauthors on it, which just invites the current administration to give us even more hassle. It's incredibly frustrating.

Sounds like RAND. That’s one reason we’re not using them….

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This all will pass in a year. Are FFRDCs a bit bloated? Probably. Is it worth the risk to demolish them? No. Freeze their ceiling and step up audits.

What risk? Are you paying attention to what's happening in government?

If there’s another terrorist attack after all of these RIFs and resignations, who has the analytic shop to advise on what to do next? That shop takes decades to cultivate. Get rid of it and see what alternatives you have. That my friend is the risk.

How many analysts sit around twiddling their thumbs?

I have noticed staff from some of the studies and analysis FFRDCs are very very young - like a year out of undergrad + 1 year MA in security studies. They have no work experience besides writing a term paper or two in school.

Are these the folks my office is shelling out $800k+ to advise us on grand strategy with a 70%+ multiplier for overhead?

There's one FFRDC... that won't be named... who seems to be hiring a lot of very young, inexperienced FTE and placing them on our task orders. They are energetic but their work just isn't sophisticated, on average. What's worse, it seems this particular FFRDC is now letting these kiddos talk to news outlets and write articles in the press with minimal supervision... often about topics related to the task orders we are paying them to do. Sometimes they are saying the most idiotic things to get attention and I know the report we paid them for will have their names as coauthors on it, which just invites the current administration to give us even more hassle. It's incredibly frustrating.

Sounds like RAND. That’s one reason we’re not using them….

Which FFRDC at RAND is hiring non PhDs and having them talk to media about those same topics?

[Anonymous]

RAND is generally very cautious and pretty bureaucratic so it doesn’t sound like it to me.

FFrDc mix junior and senior to manage average cost. So junior people might be out there collecting data but supposedly under the oversight of senior researchers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:RAND is generally very cautious and pretty bureaucratic so it doesn’t sound like it to me.

FFrDc mix junior and senior to manage average cost. So junior people might be out there collecting data but supposedly under the oversight of senior researchers.

I think RAND use to be cautious, but in recent years I've seen a lot more opinion pieces coming out of the place.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RAND is generally very cautious and pretty bureaucratic so it doesn’t sound like it to me.

FFrDc mix junior and senior to manage average cost. So junior people might be out there collecting data but supposedly under the oversight of senior researchers.

I think RAND use to be cautious, but in recent years I've seen a lot more opinion pieces coming out of the place.

But from the FFRDCs?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RAND is generally very cautious and pretty bureaucratic so it doesn’t sound like it to me.

FFrDc mix junior and senior to manage average cost. So junior people might be out there collecting data but supposedly under the oversight of senior researchers.

I think RAND use to be cautious, but in recent years I've seen a lot more opinion pieces coming out of the place.

But from the FFRDCs?

I don’t really make the distinction. It’s on their website that has their purple logo and the reports we pay for have the same purple logo on the front. Hill staffers don’t make that distinction either.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RAND is generally very cautious and pretty bureaucratic so it doesn’t sound like it to me.

FFrDc mix junior and senior to manage average cost. So junior people might be out there collecting data but supposedly under the oversight of senior researchers.

I think RAND use to be cautious, but in recent years I've seen a lot more opinion pieces coming out of the place.

I used to work for a FFRDC and opinion pieces would absolutely not be tolerated. Even if we do work for other clients, we would be impartial and not politicize our work.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RAND is generally very cautious and pretty bureaucratic so it doesn’t sound like it to me.

FFrDc mix junior and senior to manage average cost. So junior people might be out there collecting data but supposedly under the oversight of senior researchers.

I think RAND use to be cautious, but in recent years I've seen a lot more opinion pieces coming out of the place.

I used to work for a FFRDC and opinion pieces would absolutely not be tolerated. Even if we do work for other clients, we would be impartial and not politicize our work.

Not all opinion pieces are political ya know, right?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RAND is generally very cautious and pretty bureaucratic so it doesn’t sound like it to me.

FFrDc mix junior and senior to manage average cost. So junior people might be out there collecting data but supposedly under the oversight of senior researchers.

I think RAND use to be cautious, but in recent years I've seen a lot more opinion pieces coming out of the place.

But from the FFRDCs?

I don’t really make the distinction. It’s on their website that has their purple logo and the reports we pay for have the same purple logo on the front. Hill staffers don’t make that distinction either.

The accusations was about mediocre junior staffers doing FFRDC work and then turning around and writing op-eds about the same thing. Bad, if true! That is substantively different from staff who are not doing work funded by the government writing on different topics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:RAND is generally very cautious and pretty bureaucratic so it doesn’t sound like it to me.

FFrDc mix junior and senior to manage average cost. So junior people might be out there collecting data but supposedly under the oversight of senior researchers.

I think RAND use to be cautious, but in recent years I've seen a lot more opinion pieces coming out of the place.

But from the FFRDCs?

I don’t really make the distinction. It’s on their website that has their purple logo and the reports we pay for have the same purple logo on the front. Hill staffers don’t make that distinction either.

The accusations was about mediocre junior staffers doing FFRDC work and then turning around and writing op-eds about the same thing. Bad, if true! That is substantively different from staff who are not doing work funded by the government writing on different topics.

It’s true, I think. I’ve seen op-ed authors listed on reports that come across my desk and they are usually fourth or fifth author. DOGE seems to be running everything through AI these days so that scares me a bit if they start focusing on this kind of thing but who knows for sure?

[Anonymous]

The fat at FFRDC needs to cut otherwise there is going to be bigger problems in the future. One of the FFRDCs, IDA, is selling the same model for last 30 years and charging several millions for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The fat at FFRDC needs to cut otherwise there is going to be bigger problems in the future. One of the FFRDCs, IDA, is selling the same model for last 30 years and charging several millions for it.

What model?